


The world makes all kinds of rules for love, I say you gotta let it do what it does

by Ariels_Popcorn



Series: Hollywood Arts Fiction [1]
Category: Victorious (TV)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Attempted Sexual Assault, Canon Compliant, Dating, Eating Disorders, F/M, Fix-It of Sorts, Fluff and Angst, Friendship, Gen, High School, I Will Go Down With This Ship, I did way too much research, Insecurity, Mutual Pining, Physical Abuse, Pre-Canon, Romance, Self-Harm, Songfic, Teen Angst, Teen Romance
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-03
Updated: 2021-03-03
Packaged: 2021-03-03 22:20:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 17
Words: 64,814
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24722950
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ariels_Popcorn/pseuds/Ariels_Popcorn
Summary: Everyone at Hollywood Arts has their own fair share of issues, yet nothing compares to what Jade and Beck have been through.So what happens when they start facing their problems together?Aka all four seasons of Victorious from Bades’ POV(My idea of Bade and Canon Bade meeting halfway)Later based loosely on "I want crazy" by Hunter Hayes because that song is about Beck and Jade and nobody can convince me otherwise lol
Relationships: Andre Harris & Jade West, Andre Harris/Jade West, Beck Oliver & Jade West, Beck Oliver/Jade West, Tori Vega & Jade West
Series: Hollywood Arts Fiction [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1830778
Comments: 90
Kudos: 186





	1. Hi guys! I’m broken!

**Author's Note:**

> The first seven chapters will focus exclusively on their lives pre-canon (basically up to freshman year)
> 
> Update like once a week
> 
> Rlly appreciate comments

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Previously on "Our Messed Up Lives"

_I'm booking myself a one way flight_   
_I gotta see the color in your eyes_

Jade West did not have the greatest start to begin with. Neither of her parents were overly excited to raise a child together, to be honest they couldn’t be in the same room without fighting, nevertheless they decided to keep her and at least try, even if they were pretty much bound to fail.  
Jade was not a normal child, not in any way. She was fascinated by all things dead or mysterious, she usually preferred being away from other children, they were loud and annoying, and they didn’t share her excitement for the unexplainable.

So, when her father had an affair with her elementary school teacher/later stepmom, her mother filed for divorce and they had to decide who should have custody for the Wests’ daughter. She was too young to understand that they weren’t fighting over who got to keep her but over who had to. They ended up agreeing on shared custody, pushing her around between them, not that she noticed. Or maybe she did, and she put on a brave face and hoped that a nicer version of Jade could make them want her.

  
And it worked, to some extent at least. Her dad managed to be promoted to some accountant position she didn’t give a damn about, but he was notably happier, even made her breakfast in bed on her first day in middle school. It didn’t matter that he forgot her dislike for meat in general, or that the bacon made her throw up for half an hour, he tried, and she knew how to appreciate it.  
It was only a matter of time until Jade started to crack under the pressure of good grades, bright fake smiles and running the household, everything quietly of course, everything so no one was upset. It all escalated when her baby brother was born, coincidentally about the same time her mother left the country to live in Australia. What bothered the girl most that that little baby was met with so much more excitement and love and care than anyone had ever shown her, and he didn’t even have to try.

Jade West was 13 when she first cut herself. Hidden in the bathroom, the only source of light being the moon. It wasn’t just that the pain she felt rushing through her body only felt fair for someone like her, it was the adrenaline that got her high on sharp things, mostly scissors. The way the metal reflected the moonlight on their blades, the way they felt, brushing up against her arm and legs and stomach, the beautiful art they created.  
She watched the thin lines of crimson red she drew on her skin, the way her blood built up to a heavy drop, like red tears of lost hope falling onto the bathroom floor. It was almost too easy to cover them and lie about bad circulation, when anybody cared enough to ask, why she chose to wear a black flannel top at 100-degree heat.She was broken, and she knew it. Generic smiles to make up for the fact that she was unable to stop for more than 24 hours or she would be unbearable, like a mosquito bite she had to scratch. She had issues, and she knew it. Turns out there was no need to be a great liar to distract people, to keep them from figuring out the truth. She was pretty, and most days, that was enough. They didn’t want her to be a problem child, so why open this can of worms if she swore that she tripped, and fell into sharp roses?

  
Who would question that?

  
It was painfully obvious that she was hurting herself. Whoever would pay attention to the grey, sad eyes would have seen; her stepmother watched her become numb, noticed, that she did not tear up at their ignorance anymore, not even a little bit. She could only breathe through the pain she caused herself, like all of the sudden her lungs were useless, like her skin and a shiny new pair of scissors had taken over their job. If it was a scream for help then it didn’t work, and at some point, she had enough. When her mom returned from Europe, and she had a guaranteed place to stay, she set fire to the shed in her dad’s backyard. Just to spite him. And she dyed her hair in all the colors her dad hated, left school and never looked back

When being told that “at least you didn’t pierce your face honey, that would look horrifying” she went to every artist there was in LA, she was lucky, after an hour she discovered a middle-aged Italian guy, seemingly unfazed by the fact that he was committing a crime. She would never admit it, but she was scared when she sat in that chair, thinking about what her parents would say, but that just got her riled up even more, and so she left the studio with a piercing in her left eyebrow,  
and it somehow felt more like her than anything had in years.

* * *

Beck Oliver was a rainbow child. Both of his parents were excited to raise a child together, to be honest they had waited for it their whole lives. His mother had been pregnant four times before, yet no other fetus had survived long enough to be delivered alive.

The risks of multiple pregnancies include excessive blood loss while giving birth, and on February 18th 1993, the hospital was unable to keep Mrs. Oliver from dying before Beck even had the chance to meet her.

Beck was a normal child, in every way. He was the most popular guy wherever he went, the other kids loved his excitement for acting, there was no child in his kindergarten better equipped to be the protagonist of a Disney movie.

So, when he had to move to the US because his dad received a job offer he couldn’t say no to, Beck was anything **but** happy. He missed his friend and his house and Canada. He was too young to understand that his father needed the money and that Hollywood was a pretty good place to be as an actor. He ended up agreeing that his new kindergarten wasn’t _that_ bad, his house was bigger and his dad was not stressed anymore. He still missed his old town. His dad had stayed in the same neighborhood after his wife’s death, and their neighbors would tell Beck stories about Mrs. Oliver when they were babysitting him on the weekend.

Elementary school was _fine_ , to some extent at least. The other kids were great, but they treated him like their leader, and leading meant getting involved in drama, even though he had been told that his mother hated drama. While he wasn’t aware of it back then, a tiny part of him always tried to fit what he thought his mother’s expectations for her son would have been like. Beck knew that the fact that his mother was not here anymore not his fault, his dad said that every night. Sometimes he asked himself who he explained it to- Beck or himself.

It was only a matter of time until Beck started question what his dad told him, russet brown eyes like his mother, having to have the same conversation _over and over again_ : “Where is your mom?” “Dead” “What did she die of?” “Me”, he should get that on a shirt. Sometimes he could almost feel her next to him, then he had to remind himself that he never got to meet her.

It all escalated when his uncle came to visit and drunkenly said that he “really wasn't worth it ”, and he _tried to be_. His father never pushed him, he didn’t have to, one B+ and Beck locked himself in his room all week, studying for his next test. When he first heard of Hollywood Arts, he dismissed the thought of going there. But as he sat on his front porch one hot evening in May of 8th grade and looked up to the sky, he remembered wanting to be an actor. In a leap of faith, he signed up to audition.

He never told anyone, not his father or his “friends”, instead he buried his mind in homework.

A week before the date, a teacher called “Erwin Sikowitz”, who apparently handled admission, invited him to perform something on June 16th, a Tuesday, in the school’s auditorium, with the confusing side note for him to please bring a coconut.

At first, he couldn’t believe that he was actually one of the lucky artists to be picked, but then a new thought crossed his mind: What if this was the wrong path? Most wannabe actors never made it big, and what would be more embarrassing then having to live at his dad’s place forever because he couldn’t _afford_ rent? He would never forgive himself if his future was anything but bright.

Still, acting was his dream, and his drama teacher gave him (and only him) A’s without Beck actually studying or rehearsing any of the material. It came naturally to him. After all, nobody could _force_ him to actually attend the school after the audition, and someone evaluating his talent couldn’t hurt.

* * *

**June 16 th, 2009**

In true Beck Oliver fashion, her arrived twenty minutes early, ruffling his script anxiously, lowkey on the edge of a nervous breakdown. He wanted this to work way more than he would ever admit.

“You’re in my seat.” His eyes wandered off the paper, over long legs in leggings, a black skirt and a thin, long arm sweater, up to a pretty face. The face was altered by a slightly annoyed expression.

“What?”

He was distracted by the way her hair fell down her shoulders. The brown waves had him completely unable to form a more intelligent reply.

“I sat there **first**. That is my chair. You wanna move now or wait for me to kick you off it?” 

He couldn’t help but smile, not that he didn’t take her seriously, the sentence she said was just so utterly ridiculous that she had sparked his interest.

“I am pretty sure this chair- “, he motioned graciously to the basic, red plastic chair he was sitting in, “This _fine_ chair right here belongs to the school it is placed in. Unless you bought it and brought it here from home which would be, might I say, _pretty weird_.”

Her eyes shot him glares that others might have found intimidating, but he just gave her a very ironically bright smile and added “My name is Beck Oliver. Do you want to sit on **this** , almost as elegant, blue chair next to me?”

“Do you have a death wish?”

Was she kidding?

“Trust me, this chair is just as comfortable, if not more…”

She interrupted him: “HEY!” A few other candidates close by almost fell of their chairs. “I will count to three, and if you haven’t gotten up by then, I promise you that you will never sit in _any_ chair **,** EVER AGAIN!” He voice was trembling with anger, like she could freak out at him any minute now.

She was not kidding.

“ONE”, she started, but before she could even get to two, a female teacher opened the door next to him and called for “Jade West”, and the girl’s slim figure disappeared into the room, but not without her hissing “This isn’t over!”

Wow.

She was by far the most intriguing girl he had ever met in his life, he decided.

_Jade_

What a beautiful name.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Title from: Janet (The Good Place)


	2. I do not wish to be erased

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is supposed to serve as a small introduction into Jade’s homelife. What was it like for her to get into Hollywood Arts? Why was she even allowed to go?

_And telling myself I'm gonna be alright_   
_Without you baby is a waste of time_

“Didn’t I See This Movie” from Next to Normal. It wasn’t her first choice and certainly not what she had expected from herself when she first read the audition section of the Hollywood Arts website.  
Jade loved singing with all her heart, but acting had always been her favorite performing arts. There was something about feeling a character’s emotions that made her feel alive. Like pretending to be someone else brought her closer to who she was in the process.

  
Unfortunately, it was also the craft she felt most insecure about. Girls had told her she had a beautiful voice since elementary school, and when she sang along at concerts, she had snuck out to in the middle of the night to, the people around her were more than impressed. But acting meant something way more personal to the girl who had spent years pretending to be someone, something she just wasn’t.  
That’s why she chose to audition with 16 bars of this solo, the one she had practiced every day for two months now.

  
Jade tried to appear as confident and mature as possible, but deep down this was the scariest moment of her entire life. Standing in front of five qualified teachers and belting out a rock musical song took guts, she told herself.

  
So, it was not only they most scared, but also the bravest she’d ever been.

  
All people in the rather tiny auditorium looked rather stunned, and Jade pondered whether or not this was a good sign. Her mind spiraled into desperation before anyone could utter a word. What if the song was too predictable? Was she too pitchy? Did they not want a song like this?

  
“That was... awesome. Thank you so much Jade, you have a really great voice, and the song highlighted your vocal range perfectly. We will notify you Sunday night.” She could feel the air that built up in her lungs leaving her mouth in a gasp, and her heart rate slowed down.  
She reminded herself to smile, nod politely and leave the room with her head held high, so as not to appear unprofessionally. But mostly just in case the smug idiot from before was still in his…. her chair right next to the door.  
Of course, he was still sitting there, elbows on his knees, head buried in script pages of a play she didn’t recognize. She hoped he didn’t hear her sing. She knew she had promised him that this “wasn’t over” but making a scene at the school she wished to attend in September would probably hurt her more than him. So, she simply ignored him as she left.  
Sunday was even worse than Tuesday. The entire week had basically been a blur, the clock on the back of her classroom barely changing, and in addition to the slow-as-hell passage of time, it was also the beginning of July, hence the thermostat correctly read 83 °F.

Ever since she decided to pursue a career in the performing arts, her attendance had spiked. Turns out all it took to turn Jade West from a semi-middle school-dropout to a straight “B” student was a goal, and a plan on how to reach it.  
So yes, Sunday was a nightmare, but she locked herself in the bathroom with everything she needed to distract herself: A phone with the Netflix account she created on her step mother’s login, five books of different genres, and a portable DVD player she stole from her little brother, along with her favorite movie; The Scissoring. A cinematic masterpiece.  
She received a call at 6pm, after only throwing up around 3 times, since she couldn’t help it, she just had to think about the school. “Is this Jade West? “Her phone almost slipped out of her hands but she caught it before it hit the floor. “Yes!”, she snapped at the man, her voice sharp like a knife. “Yes”, she added in a more settled tone.

  
“Congratulation. You have been admitted at Hollywood Arts. We will soon email you the details, but we wanted to let you know over the phone first.” Jade cleared her throat. “I understand. Thank you for calling.”  
Jumping up and down in excitement wasn’t quite like her, but she did it anyway, for the sake of the moment. Her happiness didn’t last long, because it dawned on her, that she still had to tell her parents.

  
“Evelyn, Dad?” it was not like Jade to talk to her, well, legal guardians, in a calm manner, not since her mother returned from Europe. She barely saw her mother, because of course she resented them for not caring about her wellbeing, but at least they hadn’t abandoned her. “Yes, Jade?” The girl fumbled with her fingers. “I don’t really know how to say this, but I applied to a high school.” Evelyn stopped sorting away dishes and turned around to really look at her. It felt like she hadn’t truly looked at her in ages.  
Jade’s relationship to her stepmother was complicated, to say the least. More and more memories kept coming back from when she had just started dating her father that made it seem like there was a time when she tried. But in her in defense, Jade had only been eight years old, and way to distracted by the fact that her mom had just left and that this new, younger and much more pretending woman had been all her father suddenly cared about.  
Not to mention that she was carrying a much more wanted child around.

  
Now, at fourteen, she was looking up at her, eyes wide and filled with shyness and hope, her joy from being accepted overshadowed all grudges she held against her.  
“What kind of high school? I assumed you would go to the district one, what was it again?"  
“Fairfax. That’s the thing, I want to go to a performing arts high school.” “Are you serious? This is not something you just decide because you feel like it. I’m sorry to disappoint you, but you will attend Fairfax this fall. Your education should not be compromised by the wish to dance and sing.”  
And for the first time in her life, Jade didn’t swallow her anger.  
“It’s nothing like that! I want to become a director! Something you would know, if you had ever asked me! And this was not a sudden decision. I already auditioned and got in. You don’t even have to do anything. Just give me this one thing. My grades won’t suffer under this, and this school can’t be worse than the one who’s name you guys couldn’t even be bothered to find out. “

She knew that throwing accusations in their faces probably was not the smartest way to go, but if they weren’t going to let her attend HA anyways, she could at least make saying no harder for them. She was not going down without a fight.  
Evelyn and her dad went completely silent for a moment, thinking about what she said.  
Her dad was the first to speak again. “Does this… school… cost money?  
She was surprised that he even seemed to consider it, maybe he was trying to see if she did her research on this school. Little did he know, it had been all she did for the past three months, alongside getting her grades up to an appropriate standard, and practicing her audition, given she was one of the lucky few to actually receive an invite. This dream had been what made her want to be better, and of course perfectly prepare her for this moment.

  
“Hollywood Arts is a public tuition-free, donation-dependent high school for residents of Los Angeles County. Its admission process is highly competitive with up to 1200 applicants for approximately 160 total openings”, she cited from the school’s website.  
“And you got in?” Her dad was still frozen on the spot, but the fact that he hadn’t shut down the discussion already was precisely what it took for her to keep going. Yet, the thought of finally reaching her goal, being so close, after all her hard work made her feel horribly exhausted, and suddenly she sounded like that of a scared four-year-old. “Yes.” Her voice almost broke, and she had to bite her downer lip to keep it from trembling.  
“I will review the website. If it is as impressive as you think it is, you can go. Okay?”

She didn’t answer, she just hugged him, there was no need to put in words what she was feeling, he knew.

_Because dreamers don’t sleep._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This ff was originally only supposed to be eight chapters long, but the plotpoints I had planned for chapter one and two simply didn’t fit into one chapter each, so this might as well end up being 15 chapters long.
> 
> I always love reading comments! So if you are seeing this and thinking "I have a plot related question/ I am waiting for the next chapter/I like the story/ I have feedback/ I want to say something/ I wonder if the author likes pineapple on pizza" (I do, spoiler alert, pls don’t hate me for that), you can just comment something. 
> 
> I have been on the other end of this so many times thinking "They won’t care anyways", trust me, they do. (Or at least, I do)  
> Also sorry for this very long note, I tend to write way too much in way too long sentences, and for the fact that spellcheck is not on since I am writing this directly on Ao3, and that it’s goddamn 12 AM here and I am supposed to sleep and instead I am writing Bade FF and annoying fellow Ao3 users with my night induced humor. Pardon me. 
> 
> Also sidenote, (the last, I swear this time it is) if you see this ´ instead of this ’ anywhere, pls notify me Immediately , cause it´s ugly.( Just checking if you are still paying attention.)
> 
> Title from: Oh (Home; aka the greatest movie of all time)


	3. Previously on G l e e

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> First day of high school, Beck is sixteen because I need him to legally drive a car later on.  
> Drama occurs in improv class because we all love Sikowitz.  
> Beck is fascinated by Jade.  
> The rest is tbd.

_Yeah, our first date, girl, the seasons changed  
It got washed away in a summer rain  
You can't undo a fall like this_

**August 18 th, 2009**

Hollywood Arts was bigger than Beck’s middle school. When he passed students that were creating a choreography on the steps leading up to the school, he began to think that you could probably never compare these two.

His way inside the school had taken longer than expected, everywhere he looked were these incredibly talented people who appeared to be breathing creativity. When he finally stepped inside, he took a moment to look around and take it all in. The lockers here were different, most had colorful and unique exteriors; some were not even made of metal. 

Because Beck was so taken aback by the view, he didn’t realize that he literally stopped walking right in front of the door until it was too late: Another student walked right into him, and both stumbled away from the entrance.

Turns out the student was a freshman at Hollywood Arts too, his name was André, and when he started listing all the instruments he could play, he didn’t finish until they had reached the auditorium. The welcome speech was held by principal Eickner, and while it had some inspiring aspects in it, it was mostly just long.

While a faculty member was explaining class choices, Beck’s eyes wandered around until they landed on the same girl that he had talked to at auditions. She seemed nervous, pulling on her fingers and scanning the room for nothing in particular. When their gazes met, he expected her to be annoyed, or angry, but she just stared at him with her teal eyes.

As soon as the students were released to start their first day, he raced to the exit to catch her, but his schedule fell to the floor and André called out for him to wait. Perfect. He lost her. Again.

His first class was scriptwriting with Mr. Gradstein, a class Jade had taken too. Neither of them noticed the other at first, mostly because they were seated in different rows, Jade behind him, and the teacher was talking so fast that the whole class had trouble keeping up with him, let alone take notes.

The lesson was quick paced, highly informative and sure as hell not easy to follow, yet to Beck it was where he was meant to be.

Jade had a very different perception of her first day, the other freshmen were starring at her, multiple guys had already tried to stir up a conversation with her, and while she didn’t really have any friends, all she wanted for her first day was to be left alone.

She was anxious enough already. And when the screenwriting teacher talked about concepts she had never heard of in her entire life, she couldn’t help but feel out of place.

She should have prepared more. What if she would become that one student that always cheats off everyone else, and the other students let them because they pity them and ask themselves how they even got into the school in the first place? No.

People would respect her here. They would have no other choice as to respect her and leave her be. Jade did not need to be liked, a quality she had always been proud of. She liked people she didn’t know knowing her, it gave her a sense of power.

She knew that to be respected, she wasn’t allowed to show weakness, and she could never have anyone undermining her confidence. And Jade knew that there was no easier way to be respected than to be feared as well.

The first guy she scared was that poor nerd with the method acting ventriloquist act. His eyes were hidden behind brown curls and glasses, and he was unfortunate enough to inhabit the locker right next to Jade West. He tried to greet her with a shy “Hello”, which she saw as her first challenge, so she hissed “Move” and pushed him out of the way. This was just the start of building her reputation as the ice queen of Hollywood Arts; cold, untouchable and mean.

* * *

**August 27 th, 2009**

_Improv class, Erwin Sikowitz_

The coconut guy.

She felt his gaze on her, sitting in the chair behind her, and chose to ignore it. When they were chosen for an acting exercise, all of the sudden most girls in class desperately wanted to participate and Jade sure as hell knew it wasn’t because she was so popular.

“Come up on stage. I will start this lesson with a little game favorite of mine: The Question Game”, Sikowitz announced. “The game will happen as follows: Beck, you start and ask Jade a question, then she has to answer with a question, and so on, but neither of you are ever allowed to answer with a normal sentence, clear? Try not to change subjects if it doesn’t make sense for the story.”

Both nodded. Beck turned to her, and the sudden lack of distance made her feel lightheaded. Jade never realized, but he was about three inches taller than her. She forced herself to focus, she couldn’t lose this simple game in her first improv class, or else neither the teacher nor the other students nor _Beck_ would ever fully respect her again.

“Weird little redhead in the first row: Give us a location or time period or situation, be creative.” The only and obviously not naturally redheaded girl in class was offended for a moment, but then her mouth formed a bright grin. “How about…?” Her excitement for the task and presenting her idea matched the joy of a four-year-old walking into a candy store for the first time. “How about they meet… at night…. Running from space fairies?”

The teacher considered this prompt shortly, then made a hand gesture, indicating the start of the scene. “Lovely evening, isn’t it?” Beck had a kind of relaxed default state that Jade had never really experienced. He just smiled at her, and she wished that _someday she would feel as annoyed looking at him as she pretended to be._

“Isn’t that obvious?”

“Have you ever heard of so-called space fairies?”

“Aren’t those the most dangerous people this… _space._.. has ever seen?”

“Wouldn’t you agree that a space pirate as pretty as yourself shouldn’t fly around alone?”

“Are you implying that I can’t take care of myself?” The pace of the game started becoming faster, her practically hissing the last question at him, while Beck seemed to enjoy the situation extremely. No wonder _, all he had to do was stand there and look pretty, he didn’t have a reputation to uphold._

“Does that seem like something I would dare to say to a pirate?”

“Would you say it to any immortal being?” She high-fived herself internally, if he made her a space pirate, then she would give herself immortality.

“Would you?” She almost laughed. That was the most pathetic card to play in this game.

“Have you ever met an immortal being before?”

“Don’t you see the giant butterfly in front of you”

“How long have butterflies been count as immortal?

“Can you remember a time a butterfly died before your own eyes?” She could actually, but he didn’t have to know that.

“Where were you headed before we were discussing the fact that I have never seen a butterfly die? “

As soon as she had thought of that, she knew it was brilliant. She was answering his question while implying her answer in another question, which meant changing the topic. Sikowitz held up his right thumb and she felt encouraged again.

“Wasn’t it obvious that I went looking for you to ask you a question?” Now he had just stolen her tactic. “What question does one want to ask me?”

“Would you go out with me?”

That threw her off her rhythm. Even in this situation, standing in front of the whole class, being asked out by… _what was he to her, anyways? Crush? Hell no. She had some respect left for herself. Stalker? A bit harsh. Person that she seemed to continually run into, more intense than any other relationship to a mere stranger she had ever had? Yes._

But this could be a trick, so she had to clarify if he was being serious.

“As a space pirate?”

“No” The entire class seemed to gasp at the same time. She just stared at him with wide eyes. She had been positive that he tried to set her up, but then why had he just lost the game?

“Beck! No is not a question. That means you _lose_. Take your seats, people!”

Jade wanted to sit down without making a fuss of the question left unanswered, but as they left the stage he was still in her way. She patiently waited and looked to the floor when he turned to look at her again.

 _He didn’t know her, not really. If he knew her, he would not want to go out with her, no one would,_ she told herself.

When the lesson ended, she quickly packed her things. Beck waited for her to finish and told André to meet him later on. He was waiting for her in the hallway, leaned against the wall, still looking amused. He was actually quite nervous and had lost his cool about an hour ago, but he did his best to conceal that.

“I meant what I said in there, you know? If you don’t want to go out with me tell me and I won’t bother again, I promise. No hard feelings. “

“Why?” That caught him off guard. “What?” She let out a frustrated sight. Was he always so slow thinking and confused? “Why would you want to go out with me. You have plenty of other options and unless you have to practice for starring in a teen rom-com, asking me out seems like a stupid choice. Did you lose a bet or something?”

“What?” He didn’t realize that he was repeating himself because he was too caught up in processing what she had just said.

She groaned. “Are you always like this? Ugh. You know what? Forget it.” With that she went to storm of but he reached after her, suddenly being able to comprehend the situation. “No, wait!” He didn’t actually hold her back; he didn’t have to. “What do you want???” “Sorry if this is sudden, or anything, but I really do want to go out with you. And if you don’t want to go on a date, maybe we could just hang out sometime?”

She narrowed her eyes as she considered the invitation.

“It’s not a date.” She said quickly, then she turned around and left.

“I’ll pick you up tomorrow at seven”, he yelled after her.

_He couldn’t see it, but as she pushed the door open, a little smile appeared on her face._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you enjoyed this chapter! I personally found it hard to make it plausible for Jade to accept, because in my opinion there has to be struggle in slowly finding out who she is. This chapter was supposed to have the actual date in it as well, but I didn´t want to make it too long or tire myself out with writing, so maybe I will fuse chapter 4 and 5 into one chapter in the fure. 
> 
> Also, sidenote: Does anyone know how to make lines? I did once take a crash course in HTML coding but I don´t remember how to do a hoizontal lines that splits the page, that way long chapters with multiple dates and locations could be easier to read. So if you know how to do that, hit me up.
> 
> Title from... Well the narrator dude from Glee


	4. You go Glenn Coco!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The bird scene tradition for students that were going through the regular admitions process, a mild disappointment in the dating department, auditions that I extensively researched for no reasons and...  
> Mean Girls.  
> Which I painfully obviously did not research.  
> More at notes.  
> As a theater kid, I am sorry.

'Cause love don't know what distance is  
Yeah, I know it's crazy

**August 28 th, 2009**

Picking Jade up at seven turned out to be harder than expected. Problem number one: Beck had absolutely no idea where she lived, and because Hollywood Arts was not a district limited school, he wasn’t even sure her house was in Hollywood. That alone would not have been a problem, but he also didn’t have her phone number, so he was forced to ask her that morning in school.

Beck entered the building ten minutes early and scanned the hall for Jade’s pastel highlights. She was nowhere in sight. He took a deep breath, but before he was able to decide where to look for her next, another girl attracted his attention.

She was in his improv class, and a couple of others as well, yet he mostly remembered her because she was always hanging out with Jade. Her friend was a very loud person, always either excited or offended, which was why he didn’t have the heart to ask what her name was again.

“Hey Beck!” The girl played with her hair while forming her next words, not in flirty way, but rather as if she was about to say something that she couldn’t take back. “So…. About your plans with Jade tonight…” Now he was smiling “She told you about that?” Almost sounded like it **did** matter to her.

“Yeah… She has to cancel.” His face fell. “What? Why?” “I’m not sure. Something else came up, don’t take it personally. She didn’t come to school today either.” Beck shook his head. “Has this happened before?” “Not that I can remember…” Then, her face lit up. “Maybe she’s just sick. I bet she’ll be here again on Monday. Bye!” With that, she was, well, _bouncing_ away, and left him standing alone.

He forgot to ask the red, manic girl for Jade’s number, but then he chose to move the whole thing to the back of his head until Monday, when he would be able to talk to Jade face to face.

* * *

**August 31 st, 2009**

Cat was right, Jade came to school on Monday, but she was late and completely lost in her own thoughts when she stumbled into Mrs. Yoder’s Acting History class. She mumbled a half-hearted “sorry” and fell down onto her first-row chair.

After the lesson ended, he wanted to catch her, but his bird scene was scheduled for that morning and he didn’t want to be late and make a bad first impression. Beck simply left after performing, thinking they would let him know whether or not he passed later, yet Sikowitz took it as a sign that he had understood the concept and was confident enough to star in his first play.

Beck was the first one in his grade to pass, even though his success had basically been a misunderstanding, and a few teachers invited him to watch his classmates perform for the rest of the week. He told them he’d think about it and went home- Jade was nowhere to be found (again).

* * *

**September 3 rd, 2009**

About 60% of all freshmen at HA had decided to pursue acting and try the bird scene, one of them being Jade West. It wasn’t exactly the right moment to perform anything so crucial to her future at this school, she knew that.

What she also knew, was that Beck was staring at her in the hallways, and trying to catch her after shared lessons, but that she somehow always managed to escape him. The more she thought about it, the more she recognized that the whole plan had been foolish. She was here to study, and she wasn’t going to pass up the opportunity to chase after her dreams because of a boy with a pretty face. Not that he would have wanted to see her again after hanging out with her once.

She was way too messed up.

Her mother had returned from Europe Thursday night, and while that had practically thrown her life upside down, part of her was a little bit relieved that she had a solid excuse to cancel.

With her shiny- _in touch with her spirit_ \- mom came a new, shiny- _not so much in touch with anything_ \- step dad. He was annoying, and manipulative, and her mom constantly apologized for Jade to him. She had hoped that by Monday, Beck had found another girl.

He hadn’t.

They sat far away from each other in most classes, she would ignore him and he rolled his eyes at her. The other students noticed, of course they did. Sikowitz was wise enough to leave them be, but when she had to perform the bird scene, Beck was already sitting next to the other teachers. Watching her. Judging her. Probably making up reasons why she would bail on him. It made her nauseous.

She did ask Sikowitz what he thought of her performance, not because she cared about his opinion, but because she wanted to be polite. When he asked her what she meant by that, her eyes wandered off to Beck immediately and involuntarily, and for a second he saw a different Jade, one that was anxious and alone on that stage, in front of adults that were trying to teach her a lesson she absolutely didn’t need. “I….”, she stuttered.

He just smiled at her in a calm, friendly way. He knew she could do this. She had been excellent. “Did I pass?” “Do you think you passed?” She took a moment to consider this. After all, she hadn’t exactly been on top of her game due to her present family situation, but her acting had still been respectable. “Yes.” “Are you sure?” Was he messing with her? Was this just some game to amuse bored high school teachers?

Or was it a test in a test? To sort out first year student that weren’t eligible? “Yes, I am certain that I passed”, she uttered in a steady and confident voice. She knew she was talented enough. She deserved to be here. Those teachers didn’t need convincing- they had seen her sing and act, they needed to be stared down.

There was a long pause filled with silence, then the principal said: “Congratulations, Miss West. You passed the bird scene!” And just like that Jade was able to breathe again. She reminded herself to later check all the plays HA was staging this fall, now that she was allowed to audition.

She almost forgot that she had meant to leave the room stat, but by the time she remembered it was already too late. “Are you avoiding me?” Such a stupid question. They hadn’t talked since he asked her out, excluding the time she sent Cat to cancel on him.

Of course she was avoiding him. “No”.

_Liar_

“Then how come we never had a chance to chat about Friday again? Where were you?” Shit. “Something came up.” That wasn’t even a lie, but she sure as hell wasn’t going to tell him exactly _what_ came up. Maybe he would have let it go at this point, but the fact that she couldn’t even look him in the eye made him want to dig deeper.

“You were great today”, he motioned to the stage. Beck had decided that making her feel guilty for the not-date thing wasn’t going to get them anywhere, so he tried to distract her. “I know” Not the response he had expected.

(Amazing how fast she hides behind her confidence like a curtain, he thought)

Then she walked away from him, _again_.

* * *

The winter musical was “Mean Girls”, mostly because this bitchy girl called Trina had blackmailed the teacher in charge, not that Jade was complaining. Mean Girls was okay, the lead and most characters were female, so she had a real shot at being cast in her first show here, or so she thought.

But then at lunch, Cat and her overheard a sophomore boy telling his girlfriend that he was excited to not be a freshman anymore, in his words because “Tenth graders never get cast as big roles in the winter productions” And Jade’s soul was crushed into a million pieces. Cat tried to cheer her up, stressing that there were many other plays and musicals but they both knew that wasn’t helping either.

She still had the courage to audition for Regina, and she convinced Cat to try Karen, vocal wise the two of them weren’t very alike, yet she could not think of anyone who would bring this character more to life than her.

Bare: A Pop Opera - "All Grown Up" was the best audition song she could find, and while she could not relate to the teen pregnancy part, being this a helpless girl, lost in time, made her feel vulnerable, like she was giving too much of herself away. She hoped that the people in charge of casting recognized the overall vibe this song had in common with “Someone gets hurt”.

Jade didn’t exactly get her hopes up very high, she almost forgot that the cast list went up a week later, she only remembered when thirty teenagers were standing in front of the pin board, they were preventing her from catching a view of the list.

She took a deep breath before elbowing her way through the crowd. Her brain needed about 30 seconds to comprehend every single person’s name on the white piece of paper, and they were still shoving and pushing each other around her, so it took her a while to get to the important part.

Jade had no idea who the actors playing Cady/Gretchen/Janis/Aaron/Karen/Damien were, no one from her grade at least, Cat was a part of the ensemble, which was where she looked for her name as well. It wasn’t there.

Eyes up. Back to the second name.

Regina George…………Jane West

There was no Jane West. These idiots had misspelled her name. She almost let out a laugh. This had been her biggest goal for the first six month, playing a significant role in one of those prestigious winter productions. And they had misspelled the actress for one of their most important roles.

* * *

**September 18 th, 2009**

“You ready? You need more time to get ready than my sister... And you haven’t met my sister bro.”

Beck turned away from the mirror and rolled his eyes at André. “No really, who are you getting all dressed up for? You’re not even performing at the full moon jam!” He thought about telling his best friend he wasn’t a singer, and that he was only going to this thing because he wanted to see Jade perform, but André would tease him about it and make stupid jokes so he just shut his mouth.

“Nobody. Let’s just go.”

They were there twenty minutes early; André helped his friend in the band to set up the equipment and handed Beck the schedule.

“Who is it? 8:30 Meredith? Or 9 sharp Sherry? 9:05 Eli?” “Stop it dude” “No no let me have this one. Molly in this Mean Girls thing? Or...” he laughed “Jade West?” Beck’s face fell and so did his a few seconds later. “Tell me you’re kidding”” Why?" Beck was now looking at the glitter particles on the floor. "I think she’s pretty cool.” “Pretty cool? Beck, that girl would eat you alive.”

He shook his head. He saw Jade’s face flash between the decorations that had been set up across the whole space. His first instinct was to go over there and wish her good luck, not that she needed it, but then he chose that it was best to leave her alone right now; she probably already had enough people swarming around her.

They had been a little warmer for the past month. She only insulted him 40% of the time, they sat next to each other in a few classes and she hadn’t walked away from him. Sometimes they passed each other in the hallway and she gave him a little smile, and it felt like enough for now.

Beck had never heard of the song she was performing, but he knew under how much pressure she was. All other students with main parts were either sophomores or juniors, and they were practically breathing down her neck. Outside the show most people were already gossiping about her and how she had earned the role, he tried his best to shut the rumors down as soon as he heard them, but it was obvious that this song was important to how the people here would accept her in this role.

She killed it. And not just to him, the whole school went nuts over her belting. She was feeling the anger, he believed every world that came out of her mouth, to the point where he was afraid, she would reach for a gasoline cannister and pour it over the student body.

He went up to her, backstage, where she was surrounded by people praising her performance, she seemed a little exhausted, but she was smiling at strangers and people who had doubted her before so she seemed better than ever to him. Jade managed to separate herself from them and let him walk her to a corner that was quieter.

“You were…” “Good?” “I was going to say magnificent. That captures it better, I think”

“Thanks”, she nodded, brown streaks falling into her face and barely covering the satisfied smile on it. “Do you want me to get you a drink. You look a little… done with the world” She let out a laugh and nodded. “That would be great.”

He knew she was only being playful because it was late and was slowly coming down from a high caused by endorphins, but he enjoyed happy Jade. 

* * *

The following weeks they hung out a lot more. André and Cat got paired up for a project in songwriting class, and they usually brainstormed over lunch, so all four of them sat together, chatting about their day. Jade secretly liked André, he was funny and he didn’t try to change her attitude to people.

Beck walked her to class, and they talked about movies they liked, and sometimes she’d let something too personal slip, then she would avoid him for a while (reaching from an hour to 3 days) until they had to be around each other in class or because they were still sitting at the same table, and she pretended it never happened.

He was okay with that. He tried to throw in personal details too, what he was afraid of (basically nothing) , what made him angry (sleep deprivation), childhood stuff (he learned to ride a bike when he was 10 years old), insecurities( the latter)… He never talked about his mother; he wasn’t ready for that yet. It wasn’t like she talked about her homelife much. He still had no idea where she lived, she mentioned her mother and father on separate occasions, and he was under the impression that she had a little brother, but other than that he had no idea what her family looked like.

They had a friendship, a different kind of connection he couldn’t really explain to anyone else, they both just felt close to each other, like he was magnetically drawn to her. Why ruin that? Because of that, he was careful to block anything from getting too private, and he stayed clear of asking her out too, until November.

* * *

**November 13 th, 2009**

Opening night.

The musical was supposed to run for a week, one show per day, none on Tuesday.

Tech week had basically been eating her up, the director had still not given up on convincing her to dye her hair blonde, she had little to no time for her friends and, (and this was the worst part) two ducks from the lake around the block had decided to move into her front yard.They woke her up every morning at 6AM sharp, and the noise made it impossible for her to go to sleep again.

Jade was on the edge of a nervous breakdown lately, everyone around her could feel it, she was meaner and angrier than ever. She was usually running on strong coffee and 6 hours of sleep, and it just wasn’t enough. Yet today something different had come over her, a sense of calm rooted in the knowledge that if there was a dance move, or lyric that she didn’t have memorized by now, there was nothing she could do.

Still she couldn’t help but wonder if her parents would have liked it, not that she invited them or even mentioned the play, just out of curiosity. She had been in costume for half an hour already, now all that was left to do was her makeup. Jade refused to let anyone touch her face, so she had to do it by herself.

When she heard a noise coming from the door on the opposite mirror row, she shifted in her chair to see if anyone had to be yelled out of the room. “You ready?” The eyeliner was now smudged across her eyelid. “Beck! Shit…” She tried to cover it up to the best of her abilities, but she was already wearing around two layers of foundation, so she wasn’t able to just wash it off. “Sorry, I wanted to surprise you.” “It’s okay I just… Doesn’t matter.”

She shook her head and focused on her make up, so Beck took a step behind her and smiled so she could see his reflection in the mirror. “You do know that you’re going to do great out there, right?” She chuckled, but it felt bittersweet. “I sure hope so or I’ll humiliate myself in front of the whole school.” He didn’t respond to that, he just slowly put his arms around her from behind, feeling her relax into the hug. She stopped her movements and leaned into him. Nobody else was there to see the two. He was the one who hugged her, not the other way around. She cursed herself because she had to remind herself of these things, of the fact that she wasn’t overstepping their friendship in any way, he was the clingy one.

But as soon as Trina came into the room ,probably to check if any actress had dropped dead and needed an understudy on the spot (or to make sure of it), Jade squirmed out of the embrace and reapplied her eyeliner. Beck wasn’t bothered by the sudden rejection, it made him worried for her. Other girls had literally had someone take pictures of them talking just to brag to their friends about it, she didn’t want anyone to know that they were something else.

He decided to drop the topic until they were alone again, he waved his hand and began his way to his reserved seat. Jade had gotten André, Cat, Beck and even Robbie seats that were front and center, another one of those small signs that she **did** like all of them, enough to begin a fight with the other actors of the musical. Noted and appreciated.

* * *

The show was perfect; minus a few technical difficulties, the mics went out three times, the Cady forgot a line and Jade’s black sweater for “World Burn” suddenly disappeared, resulting in her borrowing Cat’s black jacket at intermission, which looked like a crop top on her. Because of all the costume stress Beck didn’t have any chance to check in with her, he decided it was best not to get in her way now.

During the show, people laughed and whispered and cheered but Beck just sat there and watched her; she truly deserved being cast in this show. He also tried to ignore this weird feeling inside his stomach both times Jade stage kissed Seth.

After the show he waited for her to take off her wig, pack up the costumes, wash off her make up and listen to the final speech of her director, before she returned to her friends. They all congratulated her on the show, and it just felt like a picture-perfect moment. They all knew better than to ask where her parents were, there was some sort of silent agreement between all members of their squad not to ask certain questions.

Jade was almost as bouncy as Cat usually was, even though she tried her best not to show it. Cat had to watch her brother for the night, André didn’t want to leave his grandmother and Rex had a date at 11:00 so Jade and Beck were the only ones left.

“Don’t you have to go somewhere too?” He smiled. “I think I’m going to stay out for a while. What about you?” She tilted her head. “I don’t want to go home just yet.” She barely felt like she was in her own skin again, and tonight had been the best night of her entire year. She wanted it to last, to keep that feeling of pure joy and adrenaline, just for a few more hours.

“Late dinner? I know a place.” Jade needed a moment to take in what he was proposing, it was 10:30 PM, and a boy whose last name she had basically learned yesterday, had invited her to go to some 24-hour diner. It sounded like something she should say no to.

On the other hand, she was starving, she hadn’t eaten since 3PM and was slowly starting to feel hungry again, and she didn’t want to go home at any cost, had no money on her and tomorrow was Saturday, which meant that there was no school starting way too early.

She pulled a streak of brown hair behind her ear and bit her lip. What would her parents want her to do? Her curfew was at 11. Her parents wanted her to respect that curfew, it was important to them and in their eyes the right thing to do.

“I’m in, let’s go.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Heyy! I’m back and I have written a new chapter! Again, I was planning on having their "date" in this chapter but since it is already like three times longer than the other ones, I decided to end it on a questionable note.  
> Generally speaking, there are lots of issues and plot points I want to get into and they always turn out longer than expected. 
> 
> Also, sidenote: I spend wayyyy too much time on details: I research the dates, timeline of the show, students that were mentioned at some point, Hollywood geography,school districts, and musical theatre shit. So if you ever wonder if something is accurate, I probably researched it for twenty minutes. Idk why.  
> Also I just remembered that while nobody will recheck the dates, it is a well known fact that the Mean Girls musical opened in 2017. I would have replaced it with Heathers, but that opened in 2010 so it doesn't fit either. Sorry about that. Any ideas?
> 
> Anyway, I figured out how to do lines! (And now I feel kinda stupid it’s literally this icon IN THE MIDDLE.  
> Also I sometimes change little things in the previous chapters to fit the future plot (like Beck’s age) so if something isn’t coherent, odds are I changed it (It’s a work in progress, right?)
> 
> As always, comments are much appreciated, plot or form related, if you have any prompts you want me to consider for the plot, just write it in under 10000 characters and I’ll definetly read it. 
> 
> Title from: Damian (Mean Girls)  
> Good night!


	5. I didn’t plan it

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A "not a date" date. No disappointments here.

_But I don't want "good" and I don't want "good enough"_   
_I want "can't sleep, can't breathe without your love"_   
_Front porch and one more kiss, it doesn't make sense to anybody else_

**November 13 th, 2009**

Jade pulled her jacket tighter around herself as they walked across the parking lot. The adrenaline from performing had worn off, and the cold combined with the feeling that she was doing something she wasn’t supposed to do gave her a new kind of high.

Beck’s car was yellow. She had expected a color that suited his personality- silver, maybe blue. Yellow was too over the top for a guy that mostly stayed in the background and just reacted to the stuff that was happening around him.

He tried opening the door for her, but she slapped his hand away. They weren’t driving to their senior prom, there was no reason for him to act all chivalrous. Beck just smiled and walked around the car to get to his seat. “I’m still allowed to drive my own car, right?”

She didn’t feel the need to answer. She wasn’t sure if he knew that she was fifteen and therefore not allowed to drive yet, or if he really thought that any moment now, she would throw him out and drive to a diner herself. “You killed it out there by the way.” How do you respond to that? “Uhm... Thank you”, she threw into the awkward silence . “So… Where are we going?” His car seats were extremely comfortable and she definitely enjoyed just feeling the movement of the vehicle, seeing Hollywood in the dark and not having to do anything, but she didn’t always want to block them from having any kind of conversation.

“You’ll see.” Wow. Who was blocking conversation now? “Why didn’t you audition for Mean Girls?” “Bold of you to assume I didn’t.” Was he having fun doing this? “I just assumed if you would have auditioned, they would have definitely cast you.” He chuckled. “Yeah… I don’t think so.” “Why not?” “For starters… I don’t sing.” That gave Jade a little bit of satisfaction. He was a terrible singer. Even Beck had a flaw.

He pulled into the smallest parking space there was, moving the steering wheel like a goddamn Mario Kart champion. The downside of this little show was that he hadn’t paid attention to her side, since he was normally driving alone. This way she had to climb to his seat and get out on his side. He had trouble not to laugh at her hilarious attempts to do so.

“Shut up.” He supported her by reaching out his hand and she took it. He chose not to mention it.

The diner looked like it could have easily been picked right off a movie set, it was clean but had a retro vibe to it.

There were few other customers, a hipster girl at the edge of the room was sipping on a milkshake and two guys in leather jackets ate burgers at the counter. They basically scurried to a booth at the window, neither of them wanting to draw attention to themselves. Jade didn’t want things to get weird, so she immediately grabbed the menu. Beck watched as her eyes were roaming over the options.

“Beck! Hey! Long time no see!” Jade flinched at the sudden volume and cursed. The voice belonged to a middle-aged man that was wearing a chef’s uniform, which answered her question who the hell he was. “What can I get you two?” Beck was used to ordering for his dates, but with Jade he didn’t dare that. “I’ll have a cold brew coffee and some fries.” Interesting choice. “A couple of Jalapeño Poppers and a soda please.” The chef nodded and headed back to the kitchen.

“I could have sworn you would order a burger. Or a steak.” Jade considered whether or not she should withhold what she was about to say to him, but then threw caution to the wind and told him with confidence: “I don’t eat meat.” He laughed. “For real? You’re a vegetarian?” Jade sighed. “Not by choice. Beef makes me puke.”

He looked irritated at first, but then just shrugged it off. “Can I ask you something? Now that we’re alone and all?” She looked up from the table. That could mean everything and nothing. The clock on the wall revealed to her that they had only been here for ten minutes, and she didn’t want to have an uncomfortable conversation that could possibly ruin the whole evening before she had even gotten her food.

“Do you have to? Can’t we just sit here in silence and quietly hate each other?” “Why do you think I hate you? I literally invited you here.” “True, but I blew you off in September and you still seem pretty pissed about it.”

_Busted._

“I was a little… _irritated_ by that but it’s not a big deal.”

_Liar._

She felt stupid. Obviously, he didn’t care about that. He was just being nice and she had automatically assumed that she broke his heart. As if anyone would ever get so attached.

“I wanted to ask you why you pretend to be all mean in school. You’re not like that when you don’t think about who is watching.” He carefully monitored her expression, a part of him wasn’t sure if that question had been beyond their boundaries.

She tried to answer. She tried to form the words for a well-rounded response, but it took her too long and they were interrupted by the food and beverages they had ordered. Beck thanked the waiter and turned to Jade again, who was still thinking.

Instead of answering, she chose to ask him a question of her own.

“Why did you ask me out?” He was caught off guard by her bluntness. “Well, it’s late… and I was hungry… And everybody else was- ““No not today. I mean why did you ask me out in Sikowitz’s class?”

He would like to know that himself, actually.

Why exactly _was_ he so fascinated by the girl with the murder vibe? Why didn’t he just ask her why she said yes? Weren’t those questions for the ages. Beck didn’t really date. He hung out with boys and girls equally, he had been kissed by a girl in elementary school, May, just for three seconds on Valentine’s Day. Her curls had smelled like mint and she ran away afterwards. They only kissed that one time, and she switched schools in 3rd grade.

In middle school he had kissed a guy for the first time, Hunter, when the class was playing truth or dare, but that wasn’t the same. He was briefly dating a girl in 7th grade; she was shy and nerdy and she gave him space whenever he needed it. They broke up because… well it was middle school. A year later the whole class tried to set him up with an exchange student from France, they actually kissed twice before she went back home.

He had dated maybe four girls since middle school, no relationship lasted longer than a month, and each one had left him more and more tired of love itself. Because liking someone and being liked back was too much influence over another person for him,

too much responsibility not to hurt someone by being _whatever the hell he was._

Jade wasn’t anyone he would worry about in terms of influence. She was loud and bossy and she told people when they were pissing her off. She had her secrets, and maybe that would mean that she could handle his as well. Beck was able to ignore the questions left unanswered because he had hidden stuff too. Maybe they just had to share baggage.

“How about this: I tell you something about myself, and then you do the same.” “Exchanging secrets?” “Doesn’t have to be a secret. It could just be a fact about yourself. That way you don’t leave here knowing nothing about me after telling me the story of your life or the other way around.”

“I would never tell you the story of my life the first time we hang out.”

He ignored the comment and decided to move on. “I’ll start. I don’t drink water from mountain streams.” She laughed. “Why?” “Don’t giggle! That water is full of fish. Fish pee! I don’t want to drink fish pee!” “Okay here is my fun fact: I hate the word giggling. I don’t giggle, I laugh. Now you go.”

They played the game for a while, and every fact became a little more personal. They had started with easy stuff; Jade was unable (and unwilling) to sweat, Beck loved dogs, Jade had a little brother called Milo etc. When it was Beck’s turn, he voluntarily went a little too far. “I feel like everyone at HA is more talented than me.” Her expression changed from happy to confused in a heartbeat. “Elaborate.” “You know… Cat can sing and act, you can sing and act, André can do both of those things and play pretty much every instrument.”

She thought about what he said. “I really don’t think this is about how much you can do. If you’re the best actor at the school then no one gives a damn if you sound like a dying horse. Besides, I wouldn’t say everyone can do more than you. Remember, they also accepted Sinjin...Robbie ...and Trina.”

His face lit up shortly, then he smirked. “You think I’m the best actor at the whole school?”

She shook his head as frantically as possible without looking insane. “I said IF you were the best actor in school. Don’t think so much into that.” It was helpless. He started poking her. “You think I’m a good actor.” Jade pushed his hand away. “Alright, don’t get too conceited.”

He waited for her to continue with her next fun fact/ secret, but she just starred at his order. “You haven’t touched your food.” Beck coughed. “You want me to drive you home? Your parents are probably wondering where you are.” He regretted the question as soon as he asked it.

“I don’t think so”, she whispered. “I’m sorry… I wasn’t trying to…” “It’s okay. Let’s just continue." She took a deep breath and franctically moved her hands before folding them, about to revel the biggest secret she had. "I… have a deep-rooted fear of dolphins and the ocean.” “Excuse me? Dolphins? What did they ever do to you?” “In 3rd grade I was in a summer camp and we went to the ocean every day. On the last day a dolphin showed up and scared me to death. You should have seen his teeth. I swear that if I hadn’t screamed so loudly, he would have killed me.” “Maybe he just wanted to play.” “You weren’t there.”

From there on the ice was broken and Jade started to relax. Beck told her about the swimming pool in his yard and joked about salting it and throwing in fake dolphins to swim train her. They didn’t talk about any heavy topics, why ruin what they had if they could just enjoy themselves? He began eating his steak after a while, and she ordered a mango milkshake.

Jade laughed more than she had in a while, it was refreshing to talk to someone slightly saner than Cat, and so she didn’t even notice the city waking up outside the window. When Beck caught a glimpse of the clock it indicated that it was almost four in the morning. “Shit!” “What?” Jade was distracted by her phone. “Look what time it is.” Her gaze went up to the number in the upper curve of her pear phone. “Oh.” She hadn’t noticed how long they had been talking, and she still wasn’t tired. “I should really get you home.” “Okay.” Even though Jade refused to let Beck pay (this wasn’t a date), he insisted. It honestly worried him that nobody had called to find out where she was. He had an agreement with his dad that he could stay out as long as he wanted unless there was school the next day, and under the condition that he always had his phone and keys with him.

He secretly hoped that she had a similar agreement and was just overexaggerating. He dropped her off at her door, no cars parked in the driveway and she got in with her own keys. Maybe she just didn’t want to wake anybody, he told himself. Before she stepped inside, Jade turned around once again. “Thank you.” Without missing a beat, she stepped inside and shut the door behind her without giving him a chance to answer. He drove home and she leaned against the other side of the door.

Jade slowly slid down the cold steel and pulled her knees close to her chest. She started to feel sleepy now, but she wasn’t ready to go to bed. The evening/ night was nice, and while she had basically bit her tongue after every word she had said at the beginning, at some point there had just been no barrier between them anymore.

_Nobody was home, but Beck didn’t have to know that, she thought._

_He really liked her, but Jade didn’t have to know that, he thought._

* * *

**November 17 th, 2009 **

They ended up eating dinner at the same place every night, for the rest of the week. Always just the two of them, and while André, Cat and Robbie were aware of this, they didn’t interpret too much into it. Jade insisted on it not being a date and refused to let him pay her bill again. On Tuesday (her no-show day) Beck was even able to convince all of them to go ice-skating together. The group was supposed to stay for the whole day, but Robbie fell down in the middle and a few people drove over him, so they went to the ER together.

Back on the skating range, Jade had grabbed Beck’s arm for support when she stumbled, and he was still a little spacey from the sensation of feeling her so close to him. Cat knew the on-call doctors (her brother had about three “incidents” a week), and she was also perfectly familiar with the paperwork, so she managed that part quickly.

Robbie had a sprained wrist from the fall and a few bruises from the other crashes, so naturally it hurt when the intern bandaged his injury. He screamed as if he was being stabbed, and it made Jade flinch and cling to the person next to her, coincidentally Beck. He was barely affected by sudden noises, but he pulled her closer to him when it happened. When they both realized that it was just Robbie being dramatic for Cat, he let go of her and she turned around awkwardly.

“I’m going to...”, she cleared her throat. “I’m going to look for the bathroom.” He nodded and watched her march hastily into the opposite direction. “Dude... Can we talk?” He nodded zoned out and André pulled him away from Robbie’s bed. “What in the name of god is up with you?” “Huh?” Beck was still following her with his eyes. “Are you even listening to me? **Hey**!” “Yeah, of course, what’s up?” “I could ask you that! Why are you suddenly being all touchy with Jade?”

Beck now completely focused on him. “I’m sorry. It didn’t mean anything. I wasn’t cheating on you”, he said sarcastically. “I’m being serious, man. She isn’t the kind of girl you want to date. She’s scary. “He shook his head in disbelief. “You know, if you wouldn’t have been so fast to make up your mind about her you could see that she is actually pretty cool.”

“Do you actually like her? I mean really like like her?”

“Yes. And I think she might like me too.” “Okay. Do whatever you want, but when you realize, that that girl is crazy, I’m going to say I told you so.” “I’m fine with that.”

_Another week later he would ask her on a real date._

* * *

**November 19 th, 2009**

Her parents were back from their trip since the week of the play, and she didn’t have dinner with him anymore. They still hang out as a group, and sometimes there were these romantic-ish moments between them, but he told himself that he was just over- interpreting them. She still only did things “because she wanted to and not because anyone told her to”, an excuse she only ever used to justify nice things she did.

Her dislike towards her friends was an act, her personality wasn’t, he found out. And he was okay with that. He liked her outspoken self, it made him laugh.

They had been paired up in the Museum studies and Modelling class collaboration to hand in one picture that fit the theme “Natural element”. Jade had only taken the Modelling class because she had to in the first place.

Because she wasn’t really invested in the project, Beck had the task to choose a location. He didn’t really know any of Jade’s interests apart from screenwriting, acting and singing; so, he chose to go to a karaoke bar.

“This is stupid!”, she yelled over the deafening noise of an “Elphaba” copycat. “Just trust me!”, Beck shouted in her direction, even though he knew that she had no chance to hear him. He tried to shield his ears from the screeching with his hands, but it was useless. When it finally stopped, the crowd seemed to be torn between clapping out of pity or giving their ears a break.

“Who wants to go next?” The DJ desperately tried to get people to sing, but nobody gave any sign of wanting to participate. “Go!” Beck firmly pushed her to the stage. “No! Are you crazy?”

“Oh! Great! A volunteer!” “What?” The DJ pulled her up the three stairs and suddenly she found herself in front of the microphone, with fifty people starring at her. “What do you want to sing?” She wanted to say nothing, but wouldn’t that have been more embarrassing than to just go with it? It couldn’t go worse than the one before her.

She chose a song instinctively; the title was just there. She had seen it in a show her mother had watched over and over again before she left. 

_Step one, you say we need to talk_

_He walks, you say sit down, it's just a talk_

_He smiles politely back at you_

_You stare politely right on through_

The song was four years old, and originally sung by a man, but it didn’t matter to her. When she hit the chorus after the third verse, Beck held up his camera and shot a few pictures while she wasn’t moving as much, the lighting coming from behind him was perfect and the expression of Jade’s face captured everything he liked about her.

When she was done singing the audience basically showered her in applause and the two of them went outside to get some air. She was still out of breath when he took a step towards her and kissed her.

It wasn’t a long kiss, and she didn’t kiss him back, but she also didn’t push him away.

When they separated, she was still processing what had just happened, and he turned his face away. He wanted to slowly walk away (for the dramatic effect), but it was December, the sky was pitch-black and he wasn’t about to let her wander through the city alone this late.

He took of the hoodie jacket he was wearing over his sweater and gave it to Jade, and she took it because she was freezing. The temperature difference between the crowded building and the night air was quite extreme. They walked all the way to her house without saying a word- they stayed close to each other the whole time but were careful not touch the other one.

She walked up to her front door in complete silence. While he didn’t want to disrupt the peace, he also couldn’t just leave tonight without saying _something._

“Goodnight”, was the only thing he could think of so fast, and she turned around when she heard it.

The city was too dark to say for certain, but Beck could have sworn he saw her smile.

* * *

**November 20 th, 2009**

The others noticed that they were being weird, Beck was fiddling with his hands constantly, and when Jade arrived (late, as always) she refused to look him in the eye. They wouldn’t tell them what was going on, until Rex told them to get their act together, and they skipped Sikowitz’s class to talk.

“Why did you kiss me?” Okay, so she wasn’t messing around. Straight to the point. Great.

“Why did it surprise you?”

_It was almost an established tradition between them; asking new questions to leave old ones unanswered. Sometimes he thought it was a funny game based on how they met._

She was about to ask another question but stopped herself.

“I don’t know.”

He didn’t actually expect her to admit defeat in the question game, not since she was reigning champion.

“I really enjoyed last night; you know?” She looked like she was calculating something, but she didn’t break eye contact. “So did I.”

“Where does that leave us?”

He zoned out, and looked at the floor. “Do you want to go out with me? For real this time? “

“Okay”

_And that’s how it started. He asked her to be his girlfriend on November 23 rd, and they agreed to keep their relationship private until December._

_And for a while, everything was okay._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Since I will be in another city next week, I decided to post the last bit of pre-canon today. It might be only one hour away from tomorrow here, but I reached my goal to post it today, so suck it anxiety. As you might notice I wrote absolutely nothing about the Ping Pong Scam thing. I really like that episode but it is supposed to play in 2008, Jade doesn’t have streaks or a piercing yet and that SO doesn’t fit into my timeline. Also I wanted to paste an apostrophe into the title and managed to paste the ENTIRE CHAPTER (all 3573 words). Wellp. 
> 
> I also plan on making this chapter longer, so be warned. I wanted to include thanksgiving at Beck’s house after they start dating, but in order to do that, I’d have to set the whole timeline back a month, and that takes time I don’t have today. So if you follow this fic, maybe check in on, let’s say July 28 (no promises btw) and look if I included the Thanksgiving bit, it’s going to be important for the story development and also I have no idea where else to put that. 
> 
> Also sidenote: Anyone know what show I was getting at with the karaoke song? You are very welcome to take a guess in the comments.  
> Goodnight^^
> 
> Title from: Becky (Waitress)  
> Edit 07/28/2020: I’m back! I did finish the timeline change today, but I’m not entirely sure if I will write the Thanksgiving story too. Also I’m thinking of putting it in a seperate chapter, because I would really hate it if this one was too long. Opinions?


	6. These savages are our guests/ I am a turkey. Kill me!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The missing thanksgiving chapter, TWs apply.  
> Please do not read this if you are triggered by it or if you ignore the comment on the topic in the next chapter. Out of context, this might seem romantizising. It is absolutely not meant that way. Proceed with caution.

_Who cares if you're all I think about,_   
_I've searched the world and I know now,_   
_It ain't right if you ain't lost your mind_

**November 25 th, 2009**

“Absolutely not.”

“Can you just think about it? It’s just one evening.”

Jade slammed her locker door shut and finally turned to look at him. “I don’t think it’s the right time to meet your parents! Adults tend to not like me, you know that.”

“Please! Thanksgiving is tomorrow and we don’t have school on Friday.” “So?” Beck smirked. “So, you have a whole day to recover from meeting my dad and step-mom. Not that you will need it. Just try to be nice for one night and they will love you.”

Jade tried not to look puzzled at the mention of his step mom. They had never had that conversation and frankly, she didn’t feel like it was her place to ask. Not that she had the guts to, anyways.

She knew that most people kept a safe distance because she actively _kept_ them away from her; but sometimes to her it felt like the whole front was just an exaggeration of her normal vibe that people naturally didn’t like.

Whatever it was, Jade wasn’t ready to take the risk with Beck’s parents. There was not a lot she would rather not do than eat in front of Beck’s parents and answer annoying and intrusive questions about her life for hours. Better no first impression than a bad one.

“I’ve been talking about you, you know? And they have demanded to meet you since forever.” Even better. If they already had an idea of what she should be/look like, they would be even more disappointed when he would surprise them with a mean goth girl.

“Right. Forever. Like we haven’t started dating two days ago.” “Do you really think I’ve only liked you since the day we kissed? You meant a lot to me since the day we first talked!”

What was she supposed to answer to that?

“Fine. I’ll go” “Yay!” “Under a few conditions.” She pulled a few hair streaks behind her ear in a fluid motion. “First: No other people. No aunts or uncles or curious neighbors or… I don’t know what runs around your place normally but I can only handle so much as two new people at a time.”

He laughed.

“Second: You don’t tell any embarrassing or bad things about me, everything I ever told you I told you in confidence.” “Even the dolphin thing?” “Especially the dolphin thing.”

“Third: No cheesy monologue about how you knew you liked me at first sight or how my hair reminds you of a quiet autumn day or some shit.” “Oh, okay let me just cross that off my vows for tomorrow night… No quiet-autumn-day-hair comparison…” He trailed of, writing on an imaginary piece of paper.

“I’m serious.”

“I know! I’m not stupid. Don’t invite the entire family, don’t make her look bad and no reciting of self-written poetry. Deal!”

“I wasn’t finished. Fourth…” Beck sighted. Of course, it was important to him that Jade felt comfortable meeting his parents but she was treating this dinner like it was an airport security interrogating.

She hesitated. “Fourth: I get to leave whenever I want.” “What do you mean?” “When they hate me or ask too many questions, I give you a sign and you get me out of there no questions asked.”

“How the hell am I supposed to escort you out in the middle of a family dinner?”

“I’m not asking you to escort me, I am asking you to make up an excuse for me so they don’t think that I am running away from them. It’s not that hard. Just say that I was supposed to be babysitting my brother or that I told you I have to take my bunny to the vet!”

“You have a bunny?”

“No!”, she hissed, turned around and went to class.

“Looks like we’re off to great start”, Beck mumbled and went to class as well.

* * *

**November 26 th, 2009**

Jade looked herself up and down in the mirror. She had removed her eyebrow piercing for tonight, curled her hair and braided the part close to her scalp on both sides, but instead of fully braiding them she just collected both braids into pigtails. The dress she was wearing was basically the only one she _could_ wear, since the few ones she owned were either too casual or too formal or the amount of cleavage was not appropriate.

Beck was already late; she had texted him her address yesterday and he was always on time so why, why did he have to pick today to be late? Her parents were going out tonight and her brother was with his grandparents. The house was quieter than usual and she would have loved to just spend an evening by herself, alone, in a big, empty house. Maybe she would have even invited Beck.

But Beck had a normal family, one that celebrated holidays together, one that he was an active part of, unlike her. The bell rang and pulled her out of her thoughts, and she sprinted to get it.

Beck had put his hands in his pocket, fully expecting the whole coming to the door process to take a while. Little did he know, Jade had been pacing up and down the room next door for about half an hour, so it took her about four full seconds to rip the door open and scoff at him angrily.

“You’re late.”

He nodded. “Yeah, sorry for that. I was out of gas and I noticed on my way here. If we hurry, we can still make it on time.”

He reached out his hand and she took it as he guided her to the car. At first, he thought about opening the car door for her, but that might have been a little bit too much. Out of the corner of his eye he noticed that she was pulling at her sleeves, so he tried to make conversation.

“Did I already tell you you look great?” He turned his head to her for a second and then focused on the road ahead. No reaction. “Jade?” “Huh?” Her face was distressed and she was already uneasy enough to think about jumping out of the care mid-road.

“You look beautiful.”

He could see her body relax at this, and she gave him a smile that could have almost been real.

They pulled into his driveway, next to a giant, parked RV. “What’s that?” “The RV? It used to belong to my uncle, but he is moving back to Canada next month so he said we could have it.”

“YOU’RE FROM CANADA?” Beck stopped the car so sudden that both of them fell forward in their seat. “Yep. I was born with maple syrup instead of blood.” She tried to cover up her smile by giving him an annoyed look, but failed.

He parked the car and they were welcomed by Mr. and Mrs. Oliver before they had even reached the door. Beck’s father was in his forties and looked nothing like Beck. His hair was black and thin and his eyes were some common shade between blue and grey. His step mom was younger, her hair was brown and short, she was wearing jeans and a wool sweater.

All in all, they appeared friendly. If they already hated her, they were at least hiding it well. Beck’s stepmother guided her to where the food was set up. The Olivers’ table was big enough for ten people, and Jade asked herself if they had ever needed that many chairs. Mr. Oliver was sitting at the head of the table, his wife sat down on his left side and Beck on the other side; Jade took the chair next to him.

That way the turkey was in the center of the four. The dress was starting to itch after a while and the mashed potatoes were way saltier than they were supposed to be. Jade tried to smile through it but the evening only got worse once the questions started.

“So… Jade, tell us something about your family!” She almost chocked on her vegetables but quickly caught herself, chewed faster and answered vaguely as she was done. “Well my parents are separated…” The couple exchange warning looks. Great. Already ruined it. “My father is an accountant, my stepmom is a teacher, my mother…. Does something I don’t understand that involves travelling…” (That wasn’t even a lie) “I also have a three-year-old half-brother.” “Do you have any pets?” “God no I hate animals!” Too much. The room went silent for a minute. “I don’t mean hate… I just don’t really like animals… Let’s say I’m just not a fan of like, dogs jumping on me.

Have you ever been to another person’s house and they open the door and the dog just starts jumping in your face?” She started uncontrollably talking faster as if that would save the situation. “And then they say that it’s okay because he is friendly- well maybe I’m not!”

Now Beck was involved in the whole she-is-screwing-this-up-gaze fight. “What is it?” Beck awkwardly stroked his chin. “You guys used to have a jumping dog, didn’t you?” “Yeah… Kind of.” Jade felt the strong urge to face palm but she decided there was almost nothing worse than admitting defeat now.

Beck’s stepmom was the first to push past it, she laughed (it was a very forced laugh but at least she tried) and asked Jade to give her the mashed potatoes. For another half hour the questions stopped and everyone was happy, Jade talked about Hollywood Arts, and her eyes lit up when she mentioned her favorite classes.

Beck praised her performance in Mean Girls and it made her feel almost- welcome? The first step in the wrong direction came from Beck himself, he accidentally spilled cranberry sauce all over her dress. His mother insisted on giving Jade another dress that would “look so perfect on her”.

She tried to argue with every possible reason to wear literally anything else than it, without success. The dress itself was beautiful and really brought out her eyes, but it didn’t have long sleeves. The chimney was on and the room was obviously too hot to wear any jacket over it.

Jade had no choice but to almost run to the table, arms behind her back, and put her hands as far under the table as they would go. But his parents made a big deal out of the dress, they wanted her to present it, maybe take a spin, and it would have been a wonderful bonding moment with any other girl. But this was Jade West, in her whole, messed up form.

At first, she got lucky because they spotted her tattoo and she hoped that was they only point deduction she would have to endure, but then she wasn’t fast enough to sit back down everyone simultaneously gasped at the sight of her scars.

They were only on her upper arm, some healed to thin, white lines, others barely closed. Straight memories of pain and self-hatred.

Beck’s stepmother’s face was full of horror and his dad shook his head. There might have been a timeline in which chose to stay. There might have been a version of this exact moment where Jade sat down calmly and explained the situation, one where she was over-sharing but honest, and the whole evening ended in Beck driving her home while holding her hand and making fun of his dad having had too much wine. Jade knew that leaving would only make this worse and possibly ruin her chance at ever fixing any of this, but she was trembling and her stomach was hurting, and everything was just overloading her brain, and she had to get out. Somewhere safe, away from this family. Including Beck, no matter how much that hurt the both of them.

“You know what… I think I should head home!” Tears were forming inside her eyes and she barely managed to cry the end of the statement out loud. She threw her napkin onto the table and turned on her heel to leave. She could hear Beck call out after her, but there was no stopping her now.

* * *

**November 27 th, 2009**

Beck’s parents kept their mouths shut for the rest of the evening. Beck wanted to go after her, but he knew that this would only make it worse, so he let her go. They finished their meal and washed the dishes in total silence. He snuck out his phone and sent her a message,

_Sorry about tonight, let’s talk in school?_

And he felt that it wasn’t enough, but it was the best he could come up with.

She had been self-harming.

Shit.

He thought her defensiveness with the dress was about the tattoo; he hadn’t expected anything like this. But yes, if he thought about it longer, he had never seen his girlfriend’s bare arms.

His _girlfriend_.

He felt so stupid calling her that now. Like he didn’t have the right to. The only Jade he knew was the one from school; mean, sarcastic, confident. They had been on a bunch of “dates”, sure, but he barely knew a thing about her. How foolish had he been not to notice this in _summer_?

He didn’t hear from her that night and he debated driving to her house the next day but was stopped by his parents.

“Hold up. Where are you going?” Beck had expected a tough conversation last night, and when wasn’t there, a part of him had hoped they forgot about it. “I’m going to check on Jade.”

“About that… Why don’t you sit down?”

“Why?” He knew where this was going but he really hoped he was wrong.

“Maybe _Jade_ isn’t the kind of girl you want to go out with.” Beck stayed silent. If they wanted to ask this of him, they would have to say it out loud.

“What I’m... What we’re saying is… We don’t want you to see her anymore. I know you like her a lot, but we don’t want you to go down the same path as her.”

“Absolutely not.”

“Beck… She is cutting herself. She has a tattoo. There are probably many things we don’t know about her yet that would underline this.”

“So, you want me to break up with my girlfriend… Because she has had a hard time in her life? Uncle Chad literally almost killed himself with drinking, but he still gets invited to Christmas! He gets to make mistakes and recover and grow from that!”

“Beck that’s enough.”

“We all have dark stuff, and you don’t know if she is still doing that!”

“We talked about this. You live under our roof; you live under our rules.”

He hated that sentence. His father had made up the rule when he wanted to go camping with a friend from middle school, and since then it was the go-to argument ender in this house.

He paused. “What if I didn’t?”

His dad was baffled. “You’re sixteen! You can’t just move out!”

“I could live in Chad’s RV. I could… you know… collect important life experience about living on my own without you having to worry about my safety, because I’m only twenty feet away.”

Definitely not the time to throw in that idea. But his dad actually took time to consider it.

“Okay: You live in the RV for two weeks. You can decorate it and put your stuff there, but you do everything yourself. No cheating. If that works for the whole time, you can move.”

“And I can make my own rules.”

His dad sighed. “Look, Beck, this rule is for your own good. Do you really think people like her graduate…? And go to college? Even if I allow you to see her, in the end you will wish that I didn’t.”

“Let me decide that for myself. I’m moving into the RV.”

“Fine.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I did it! Yay! It is a sole chapter for now, I might fuse it later on. I thought about ending the chapter with a summary of what happens until March ( when Tori gets there). But the conversation that Beck and Jade are about to have is too important to skip over, even if that means that I will have to write it.  
> As always, write a comment if you want to see the author very happy, report mistakes, and the next chapter will probably be written& soon (I am somewhere else again).  
> Bye!  
> Title from: Wednesday (Addams Family Values)


	7. Awww! She’s ugly!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Same TWs apply. A longer discussion about Jade’s mental health.  
> Also the squad finds out about them and Tori ruins everything.  
> I personally like her, but I like Jade more (or what could have been Jade in a show with more layered characters) so this chapter probably isn’t for people that love her.

_Yeah, I don't want easy, I want crazy_   
_Are you with me baby? Let's be crazy_

**November 29 th, 2009**

70 ° F.

How unfair.

Sure, it was Los Angeles, but it was November, almost December, and she didn’t feel like it was appropriate for the sun to shine. Her parents had conveniently ignored her for the past two days, her brother had once asked her if she wanted some of his cereal.

She was so off her game that she almost said yes, but then she remembered that he was a descendant of the enemy, so she just went straight to her room. Stupid cute little brothers, stupid scars, stupid romance, she didn’t need any of that.

Beck had attempted to call her Friday night, and she had thrown her phone out the window, literally. Not the most mature reaction, but it felt good at the time. Now the sun was shining down on her house, her doorstep, and Beck, who was standing on it.

Right.

“I tried to call you.” “I know.”

He shot her a questioning glare and she shot it right back. If he was hoping for an explanation, maybe even an excuse, he wouldn’t get it. Not from her.

“Do you have time to talk?” She turned to pretend like there was anyone desperately waiting for her return, but who was she kidding, they wouldn’t care if she went out for twenty minutes. So, she stepped outside without any key or phone or wallet, whatever she needed in the future wasn’t her main concern right now.

When they found a bench to sit on that wasn’t 100°F warm, Jade crossed her arms and turned to face away from Beck. She couldn’t look at him right now.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” His tone was relaxed so it didn’t sound like an accusation, but it still wasn’t how she had expected to start this. “I didn’t know how to.” She paused. “How do you tell someone?” He nodded. “No, I’m asking because this is the first time that I did, and I wouldn’t exactly mark it as successful.

Look, I never planned on keeping this from you. But you were so… adaptable to everything I threw at you to find out if you were serious about me. I thought that this might be a little too much at once.” “I can’t believe you never told anyone.” “I never needed to. I’m fine by myself, I used to talk and nobody listened, so somewhere down the road I stopped trying so hard to make other people care about me. This is what I do to vent, and without it, I am worried I might go insane.”

“I would have listened. I can listen now. This is not a good coping mechanism!”

“It’s not like I’m trying to kill myself for god’s sake! They’re so small that they could never be dangerous or… or life threatening! Other people drink, and smoke, and bang their head against a wall. They wax their skin and stab ink under it and scratch their mosquito bite when they know they shouldn’t. Those things all create pain. Why is that okay? Why does nobody say anything to that. But as soon as someone talks about it, they're damaged beyond repair. Why?”

Jade didn’t mean to spit it all out at once but her head was boiling like a jacuzzi and once she was upset there was no stopping her. She had collected lots of thoughts on this topic for the past years.

“I’m not saying that they have a right to judge you but don’t you think there is a difference between scratching a mosquito bite and driving a knife over your skin? And even if no wounds of yours would ever get infected, your brain would still think it’s acceptable to punish yourself for things that really aren’t your fault!

You don’t think much of yourself; you don’t take care of yourself- Why would you? At the first sign of trouble, you pay the price for whatever went wrong that day. I like you. A lot. That includes all of you. And this is a part of what you have been through, I accept that. But I can’t care about someone that doesn’t care about themselves. I don’t want to go home tonight and worry about you so much that I can’t sleep or eat.

Jade, you don’t have to promise me to never do that again, because I know that you can’t. but promise that you will try. When you feel angry, or sad, or anxious, you call me and we will figure it out together, okay?”

“Okay.”

And that was it. They ended up talking for an hour, Beck told Jade about the RV, and she told him about her brother. Whenever Thanksgiving came up, they both lowered their voice and he put an arm around her shoulder. Nothing to see there, just two teenagers on a bench, caring about nothing else but each other.

* * *

**December, 2009**

André was the first from their group to find out. He had left his ukulele in the rehearsal room and didn’t hear the obvious kissing sounds, or he was so used to them that he didn’t pay attention. Soon enough he discovered that his best friend was in fact making out with the girl he himself had explicitly warned him about, and he chose to keep his mouth shut about it just long enough to say “I told you so.”

André Harris was waiting for the other shoe to drop, and it didn’t. And slowly, he started to see them too. Not the harsh jealousy, or the public make out sessions, or the obvious way they didn’t fit.

It was how Beck took her hand when she was stressing before an exam. Or the way she held his face when he was overlooked for a project, _again_. They took care of each other, silently, quickly, almost so hidden that nobody noticed but him. Beck and Jade had created their own safe space, physically right next to him, but mentally miles away.

Somehow, he got them.

Cat Valentine just knew. Possibly even before André, but she insisted that she had the big revelation at the screening of a horror movie that they all visited a week before Christmas holidays. Jade tried to explain, but Cat just giggled and twirled her velvet red curls around her finger. No need for an explanation, the girl had always known.

Robbie, on the other hand, figured it out last, and was as awkward as he could have possibly been. He congratulated both of them as if they had won a Nobel Prize, asked very intrusive questions, and gave them a Valentine’s Day gift on the last day of school. It was still December. Beck had kept his three-page photo album with blurry photos of them, taken approximately either two inches or two miles away from their faces. Beck had awkwardly thanked him; Jade had visibly ditched hers in the nearest trash can.

They made their relationship official a day before Christmas, Beck’s family was away for the holidays and they posted a picture that Cat had taken on their Slap pages. The students didn’t dare to say anything about them, occasionally Sikowitz “accidentally” paired them up for acting exercises and cast them as boyfriend/girlfriend or husband/wife.

Eventually, everyone got used to the idea of Bade.

* * *

**March 22 nd,2010**

Her eyes were ugly.

Her dress basically screamed “I’m special” and her eyebrows, oh they were the worst part about her. The way they twitched and formed an expression so fake, Jade could tell all the way from the audience.

Mere two minutes after she first saw her, she hated her. There was a big amount of distance between them, and she decided to keep it that way.

Tori Vega.

Okay, she was kind of thankful that she wasn’t being forced to listen to Trina’s shrieks of “talent”, but the new girl wasn’t _that_ good. She was normal, boring almost, straight brown hair, brown eyes. The opposite of special.

André watched her have her moment on that stage like she was the peak of singers. The song was so cliché, she could have thrown up. Everyone was suddenly blown away by this average chick with her average sounding voice and her sweaty face, so much even that they let her skip auditions. Not only was that unfair, but it completely countered HA tradition.

Robbie told her not to be upset about it, and she spit gum in his hair. Jade was loathing her from the very beginning.

And when she came back from the bathroom and Tori was circling her wrist over Beck’s chest, obviously, it made Jade dislike her even more.

_Who does she think she is?_

“Dude, why you rubbing my boyfriend?” The student turned around hastily and took a step back.

“I just... I spilled coffee on... ““Get away from him.” Jade had always been a little possessive of Beck. People didn’t have the guts to flirt with Jade; since Beck and her were dating, her image had gone from quiet girl with occasional outbursts to mean girl with very frequent outbursts.

Her friends agreed that it was good that she had earned more confidence, yet her jealousy had taken on a whole new level lately.

“Relax.”

Beck didn’t get it, he never had. It wasn’t that he liked angering Jade, he just never understood why she was even worried in the first place. To him, the possibility of anyone being more important to him than her was laughable. She just never got the joke.

Sikowitz started the lesson with an exercise, and gave Jade the perfect opportunity to put the poor girl in her place. When he saw his girlfriend open her iced coffee, he knew she was too far gone to be stopped.

He still tried though.

“Jade!”

But she already poured her latte over Tori’s head, brown liquid dropping off her forehead and into her eyes, finished off by ice cubes falling onto her.

“You can’t keep going like this. She was just being nice!”

“Whatever.”

* * *

**March 23 rd, 2010**

Somehow all of their conversations ended like this; with one of them walking away, or showing that they didn’t care. And the other one never had enough energy to fight them.

This was peaceful, this was home, but somehow it was too exhausting to insist on something and fight over it for a week. 

So, when the brunette came back and Jade was excluded from the game, Beck went too far.

“I know what will make you feel better.” _He should just win the game and leave with his girlfriend_.

“Jumping jacks?” _They were too close._

“Kiss me.” _He shouldn’t. He didn’t care about Tori, he cared about making a point, stirring up some dust in their relationship so that Jade felt the need to fight for them, him, just as much as he did. He wasn’t her property, and they needed to have this conversation_.

“Let's do it.”

He could hear her gasping instantly and knew that it had completely backfired.

She quietly accepted his ride home because she didn’t have her license yet. She wasn’t angry like she had been when Rex stole her coffee this morning. She was angry, she had to be, but there was no sign of it on the outside. She just sat there, twirling her hair. Beck was almost sure that he heard her humming.

_The sound miraculously got louder every time he attempted to explain what happened in class._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I’m still alive!  
> I wrote this chapter now because lately I haven’t had the time and energy to script this important conversation. But now I am back and the end of this day (they have to make up before ep 2 somehow) will be posted soon.  
> This will pose new challenges becuase a) I will now have to go with the episode timeline since we are not pre- canon anymore and b) I will have to make all the insane things that happened to them in the show appear logical since Victorious kinda always chose comedy over character development. I will try to keep it as close to canon as possible, but I might erase some of their fights if they don’t make sense to me.  
> Also when talking about the curls that Cat has I am thinking about the pilot ones. And I am really convinced that this would have been the way Robbie reacted to their relationship.  
> I have a really cool idea for their make up in chapter 9 (no smut) so stay tuned lol
> 
> Title from: The one and only John Mulaney (Kid Gorgeous)  
> As always I appreciate kudos, but I love comments^^


	8. I'll boil you alive. Yeah. Top most painful way to die, according to BuzzFeed.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An almost breakup and a study in Jade’s homelife, for Angst and Canon Compliance. Or not.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: My interpretation of the black eye episode varies from canon in many ways. Please ignore the fact that the episode plays out differently here, like I mentioned before, it is hard to write this relationship the same way it was portrayed in the show. Also, I morphed chapter one and two, so don’t be confused by the new nummeration of chapters. 
> 
> ALSO TW ABUSE!

_I wanna be scared, don't wanna know why  
Wanna feel good, don't have to be right_

**March 23rd, 2010**

They were done. Obviously, Jade thought. She couldn’t possibly stay with someone who had humiliated her like that.

Sure, nobody was bold enough to say it to her face but she noticed the looks they got in the hallway. She could read the confusion in their eyes. Why would the seemingly kindest person on earth be with someone so moody and controlling? She tried not to let it get to her. He was the one who asked **her** out first, kissed **her** first, so if the relationship was to end, it would end with **her** breaking up with **him** , not the other way around. **She** would win them.

The part of her that was congratulating her for staying on top of the situation at all cost was pushing the other part deep down. The part that was sad; no sad was not the right word,

devastated.

She didn’t need him, Jade was able to be happy by herself, but he made her happi-er, and somehow, she wasn’t able to give up on them just yet.

So, when he pulled into his driveway, she completely forgot that he had skipped her house, and blurted her thoughts out into the silence surrounding them. “I don’t want to break up with you!”

Beck was just about to smoothly stop the car, but her statement had him so startled that he hit the brakes and both of them immediately fell forward. 

“What the hell are you talking about?” She turned to him, eyes filled with fear and desperation. “I don’t know why you kissed her but I want to. I want to understand why you hurt me and why you messed up because if one of us did something stupid I would have guessed it to be me. But it wasn’t me. I didn’t kiss anyone else, I didn’t flirt with anyone else, **you did**. I get that it’s sometimes hard to be around me but we could have talked. This was not my fault.”

She was blinking more frantically; her gaze was unfocussed, she sped up and her voice was almost at the same vocal range as Cat’s.

“So, if you want to break up that’s fine, _whatever_ , because that’s what people do, they like each other and then they don’t anymore and they fight and they split up but we had a good- what, - five months? And I know I’m rambling and I shouldn’t ramble but don’t kiss me to prevent me from doing it because this is not a cheesy romcom and I need to say this because you, _you messed up **.**_ “

Beck paused.

“I’m sorry.”

It was not at all what she had expected him to say, but somehow it was a good statement for her exit her spiral into hopelessness. Instead of reacting to what he had just said, she got out of the car and walked over to the RV. She had stayed there before, not overnight; Beck’s parents would kill them.

But after school it was a good place to hang out and spend some time alone; or with Beck, which was basically like being alone, in the best way. She was an introvert, being around people was more draining than being alone. But Beck could just be around her, both buried in their own thoughts, and it was perfect. Because she always knew he was there. Close enough to be comforting, not close enough to be suffocating.

The Silver Streak was not very tall. It was decorated with lights and there were two wooden chairs outside that gave it a relaxed beach aesthetic. His old bunk bed was placed next to the windows; the neighbors had wanted to buy it the next day. Suddenly Jade was feeling impulsive, she was climbing onto the upper bed.

Beck had gotten out of the care as well, yelling after her. “What are you doing?”

She was on top now, taking the next step on the roof of his RV. “You’re only going to hurt yourself. Come down from there!” She didn’t even think about it. She just crossed her legs, smiled at him and tilted her head. He took that as an invitation to join her, and climbed the bed shortly after her. Jade gave way for him to sit down beside her, and they were silent again.

“You know I only like you, right?” It was not a lot, but at the same time it was all she needed to hear. She scoffed. As if she was going to let him off the hook that easily. “I mean it. I like you a lot. More than anyone before. And that’s scary.” “That doesn’t give you the right to be a jerk.” “I know.”

She thought that was the end of it, but he gently moved her face in his direction.

“Jade?” “What?”

“I love you.”

Jade would later remember that it was a surprise, that out of nowhere, he suddenly made everything complicated again. But that was a lie, she had known, deep down it wasn’t sudden at all, it was a fact. Because Beck loved Jade.

“I love you too.”

Because Jade loved Beck.

Perhaps a fight should end in a long conversation. Communication is the key to any good long-term relationship, according to BuzzFeed. Perhaps couples should master one step before taking the next, or as they truly did, running up the stairs without looking back or worrying about tripping.

But as always, they threw caution in the wind, making out for the rest of the evening, until they were interrupted by the Asian-Spanish-American housekeeper. Maybe they would do it right the next time, Beck thought. Or maybe, they were just special.

* * *

**April 5th, 2010**

_Stage fighting._

Beck had laughed for five minutes straight when he saw Jade’s face after their teacher told them that whoever actually hit their team partner would get less points. Cowards. This could have been so much fun.

He stopped laughing when Jade and Tori got teamed up. Lately, all of his girlfriend’s encounters with the brunette had been peaceful, or at the very least non- life threatening. Sure, Jade had been pissed when Tori passed the bird scene, but there were no attempts to sabotage her, at least none that he was aware of. The atmosphere between them was almost harmless, with the exception that the whole group knew that it simply couldn’t last long.

Jade had declared a new enemy, so it was only a matter of days until it all went to hell. At lunch, she was less grumpy or mean than usually, as if someone had stolen her soul and left behind her empty body. “Do you want some of my fries?” André and Jade had become pretty tight friends over the past month, he was now the only one besides Beck she called talented and he had promised her the lead role in the play he was writing.

Their friendship was nice and casual, but today nothing he said came through to her.

“Jade…?” Beck tapped her shoulder to make her aware of André’s question, and the impulse went through her body like a flash. She flinched, subtly, but enough for Beck to frown; her posture went from teenage stoner to prep school student in no time and she pulled her jacket tighter around herself. They had obviously disturbed her daydreaming.

“Sure, yeah, just take some.” She motioned to her empty bag of fries and her gaze went distant again. “What is up with her today?” Beck studied her expression to try and get an answer; she didn’t look hurt or sick or upset, just empty.

“Probably didn’t get enough sleep” was the best he could come up with, then the bell rang and separated them. After school he waited for her and she didn’t show up, he only received a text with many typos, as if written in a hurry, that mentioned something about her brother and having to be home early.

Surprisingly, Beck didn’t think much of it.

* * *

**April 12 th, 2010**

Cat was nice, nobody could deny that.

She was also strange. Weirdly enough, stunt class was the first time Beck had been paired up with the irritating redhead. Beck was used to weird people, after all, Robbie and Jade were two of his closest friends, though it felt weird to list them in the same category. The subject was mandatory for everyone that had acting as their main branch, and André had taken it just for fun.

Robbie was out sick because Rex made him eat something spoiled on a dare, and somehow, Beck and Cat were now in charge of creating their own fight scene. During the process, she had told him a bunch of extremely disturbing stories about her brother, that made him want to let her live with him forever. But she just laughed it off like they had been talking about a sitcom instead of her brother’s history of violence against passengers on public transit.

All in all, she was a very kind human being and her creativity was surpassing everyone else’s, so he was glad to have her in his group. The scene was three minutes long, and contained a rather PG interpretation of Cat’s graphic idea. A drunken guest attacks the bartender, Beck even had the idea that she could bang her fist against his chest, with her size, he barely felt it. He enjoyed crafting something with someone so passionate and secretly hoped that Jade felt the same way about working with Tori. Maybe this could result in a peace treaty he thought, but of course he knew that would never really happen. 

“Jori” would have been up first, but Jade somehow got her teacher to reschedule, and called in sick at that date. Beck and Cat were performing their scene this day, and it went better than expected. After school he called Jade and she didn’t pick up.

Unusual to say the least, but he told himself not to worry about it.

* * *

**April 19 th, 2010**

“So… I see Miss West isn’t planning on making an appearance today either, great… Tori, maybe we can find a way for you to perform the scene you guys wrote with someone else? I want to move on to another topic next lesson, and I need to put down a grade for you guys.”

Beck was going to disagree with him, fight for her right to perform the scene, but she wasn’t even there, honestly, he had absolutely no idea _where_ she was, so he stayed quiet. Something was going on with her, and-

The door opened softly, the way you expect a shy second grader to open the door to the principal’s office, or a hungover teenager to open literally any door at all. The latter was probably more realistic and supported by the dark, oversized sun glasses she was wearing. The shade covered her eyes and wiped any trace of an expression off her face. The whole class quieted down as a mumbled “… late, sorry” escaped her pale lips. Friends gave each other knowing looks, but the squad didn’t care, they were worried. Even Tori blinked at her in confusion.

_So she had no idea Jade would show up. The plot was thinning out._

“Jade! Nice to see you again!” The ironic subtext was so obvious, it was almost screaming. “Do both of you want to perform the scene now?” Tori went to look at Jade to confirm but the girl just went straight to her corner of the stage. Okay.

“Would you please take off the sunglasses Jade?” “They’re relevant for the scene.” Tori was already in position and now broke character. “No, they’re- “

Even without being able to see her eyes, the way Jade snapped her head in Tori’s direction was unmistakable. It was better to shut up. Tori made a big fuss about having a safe word, as if Jade looked like she was in the mood to harm her. The scene itself didn’t feature Jade hurting Tori; even though she was playing the mugger, the pair had chosen to start their scene with a plot twist: The old lady was attacking the mugger before he was able to attack her.

Then something went wrong.

Tori turned, cane gripped like a sword, and the moment she turned she heard a muffled sound. Except their scene didn’t include any sound effects. And the loud sound Jade made wasn’t planned either. Immediately, everyone knew something was wrong. The sounds, the way Jade’s body hit the floor, those were all too realistic for a simple scene. Lastly, Tori’s shocked expression combined with her body which was frozen to the spot gave away that something wasn’t going according to script. When Jade turned to face the class again, her left eye was swollen and bleeding from a cut below.

The teacher, André, Cat, Russ and Beck all rushed to her immediately. Beck was right by her side and touched her arm to comfort her. “Are you okay?” Russ inspected her eye. “What happened?” “Tori hit me in the face, for real”, she answered to the both of them. “No, I didn’t!” A bold statement given the fact that everyone had heard and seen it happen. “Tell that to my bloody eye, ow!”

Jade moved her body into Beck’s chest, and he put his arms around her. Someone got her a chair and an ice pack, but it didn’t really make the injury any smaller. The cut had stopped bleeding, when Tori tried to clear up the situation again. “Jade you know I didn’t hit you. I swung, but I missed!”

Now that was odd. Beck didn’t really suspect Tori to lie about this but the evidence was basically speaking for itself. Why was Tori trying so hard to defend herself? So, she accidentally punched Jade, that could have happened to everyone in that situation. She would probably even be able to avoid repercussions for her actions if she changed her mind about what happened. And yet, she held onto her story. Jade was unable to really answer the question since she almost fainted, and instructed Beck to call her mom. Tori was obviously mad, but for once Beck believed Jade’s actions to not be about Tori. That black eye was real, he was certain about it.

* * *

**April 21 st, 2010**

The first time Beck suspected that something different was going on was when Jade refused to get back at Sinjin for sitting next to her at lunch. He seemed quite irritated by that himself. Beck was too focused on his girlfriend to tell him off so Sinjin just awkwardly stayed at their table. “What is up with you?” “Huh? Nothing!” With those words, Jade jumped to her feet and stormed away. Beck contemplated giving her space but decided that he had left her alone too many times already, and he sprinted after her.

She was nowhere to be found in the parking lot and nobody had seen her, so he went to the next best place, her house. All the lights were out. When he couldn’t find her at their spot in the park, Beck thought about going back to school for the last period and talking to her the next day. But who was to say she would even be there and not just ditch school for the rest of the week? He didn’t want to take that risk. In a last, desperate attempt to find her, he drove to the 24/7 diner they had last visited in winter, it was a far-fetched place for her to be, but Beck just didn’t have many other options.

He was more than disappointed when he was unable to spot her pink highlights at the restaurant. “Looking for something?” Marco, the owner and head chef, had approached him from behind. “Yes. Have you seen Jade? You know… the girl I was last here with, she has…” Marco looked more than insulted by this. “Beck. I know who Jade is! She was here a lot lately.” Beck’s face fell at this. “Really? She didn’t mention that.” “Yeah. She was last here on Monday morning.” When he saw how hurt Beck looked, he added a sympathetic “Big fight huh?” “Yes…No…It’s complicated. Thanks anyways.”

He turned to leave, and Marco called after him when he was almost out the door. “Good luck. When you find her, tell her that I hope her eye is doing better.”

Beck just nodded and headed to his car. When he was reaching for his seatbelt, he was mentally creating a timeline. The first week, Jade had been more tense than usual. The second week, she had moved her stage fighting scene and then this week she had been at the dinner and later in class, where-

_Holy shit_

He released his tight grip on the seatbelt and basically jumped out of his car with little regards to properly locking it (at least he didn’t leave his keys inside), then he ran back all the way into the diner and to the counter, where Marco was now serving another customer.

Beck was completely breathless but that didn’t prevent him from spitting out his next question. “When… When did you…”? He was trying really hard not to interrupt himself by longing for oxygen, “When did you see Jade for the last time?” Without looking up from the screen, he was still taking the girl’s order, Marco answered his question without hesitating. “Monday morning.” “When exactly?” “Around 8AM, why?” “Are you sure?” “Yes. I have a new milkshake flavor since Monday and she was the first one to try it.” “Then how did you know about her eye?”

“Well she was wearing sunglasses for most of the time but she took them off to read the menu. Is something wrong?” Beck shook his head, said goodbye and made his way to the car for the second time. He called Jade again, and this time she picked up.

“Beck I swear to god just leave me alone!”

“Hey.”

That made her pause for a second.

“Hey”

“Can we talk? Please?”

“I’m at the RV in 10 minutes, okay?”

She sounded so soft, so breakable, like all power had left her. Jade was loud and direct and confident, at least most of the time. Beck liked that about her. At first, he had thought that she was just putting up a facade for everyone to leave her alone, but she was powerful in her purest form. It wasn’t something anybody could bring under control or fix, and when that spirit was quieter, like it was now, it usually meant that she was creating art.

He had once seen Jade draw. She was pretty good, the faces she drew had something deeply moving between the thin pencil lines that shaped them. But what amazed him even more than the creation was the artist. Like a toddler putting itself back to sleep, she was quietly humming to herself and completely lost in her own thoughts.

Yet even then, at her most relaxed and introspective, she still had a sense of passion inside her. Now, over the phone, she sounded broken.

“Okay.”

She was there before him, he assumed that she had taken an uber to his place while he was calling her. Her legs were dangling from the roof of his RV, her head was turned towards their neighbor’s backyard, and for once he was thankful that his parents weren’t home. Not wanting to scare her, he slowly parked his car and approached her. She looked beautiful like this, her hair was softly flowing in the afternoon wind and her silhouette matched that of a painting.

Ever since his old bed had been sold, Beck had moved a misplaced ladder to the hidden back of his RV. His parents didn’t know about their rooftop hangouts and probably wouldn’t approve of them either.

She noticed him when he went to climb the other side of the RV as well.

“Jump.” 

“What?” She looked at him, surprise written in her features. “Come on, trust me. Jump” “You’re crazy!” He laughed and for the first time this month, a smile escaped her lips. “Promise you won’t let me fall.” “I would never.” She seemed to overthink the idea for a second, then her face lit up as if she was to go on a spontaneous road trip. “Okay. Ready?”

He opened his arms to catch her. “Go.” And she did. The way down wasn’t notably long and Jade wasn’t heavy to Beck either, yet the idea of letting yourself fall into another person’s arms is scary.

He caught her by wrapping his arms around her and she let out a small scream when she felt her stomach drop. “You okay?” “Yeah”, she let out and he opened the door to the RV. “Let’s go inside.”

When they sat down on his bed, Beck’s hand gently touched her face. “Tori didn’t hit you.” She silently nodded. “Then where did you get the black eye?” 

**Honesty**.

“I told you about my parents, right?” She didn’t wait for Beck to respond and continued hastily. “Well my mom has a new boyfriend and he kind of yells a lot. You know… He said that he would punish my mother if she interrupted him again or if I didn’t do the dishes…” She turned her face away from him. “I guess… I though… It was only a matter of time until he would actually hurt one of us.” “So… wait…” He still didn’t fully understand how that piece of information was supposed to fit into his timeline of events.

“When you’re doing stage fighting, accidents happen a lot, you know.” They sat quietly for a while, before Beck raised his voice again. “You knew he would hit you at some point, so you kept delaying the scene until you could use it as an excuse for the injuries.”

More of a statement than a question.

“I know that I should have left Tori out of this but it was so perfect and nobody would have found out until… Actually, how did you find out?” “Marco saw you, not that it matters, the important thing is: Did you tell your dad?” “No.” “Step-mom?” “No.” “Anyone?” Beck’s voice was filled with desperation and a hint of anger. “Look I’m sorry I didn’t say anything but I don’t want my mom to leave again because I couldn’t shut up over one tiny thing!”

“He hit you! And he could do it again. I get that you don’t want to cause trouble but a black eye isn’t a tiny thing. If he is capable of doing this to you then think about what else he could do. It won’t stop at one time. I’m really worried about you. You’ve changed since this whole thing started.”

Carefully, he turned her face back to him. “You don’t deserve this.” That was all it took for her to break down. Suddenly, her eyes were filled with tears and they wouldn’t stop spilling over and flowing over her neck onto the collar of her shirt.

She curled up in his arms and stayed there while he whispered calming thing into her ear.

After a while, she pulled herself out of his embrace and wiped her eyes. He got up and went to one of his drawers. She couldn’t see what he was taking out of it and her vision was still a little blurry when he came back, so she didn’t recognize the small object.

He looked at her, puffy eyes and deep red cheeks on fair skin, and reached out his closed hand. When he opened it, she could finally see the key hidden inside.

“Here. Whenever you need a place to stay, just come here. You can visit for as long as you want, even when I’m not here. My mom also has one so be careful.” She smiled at him, and he kissed her forehead. Please don’t go back to that house. I don’t really have a long-term solution right now but I really need you to be safe for now. We will figure something out soon, together.”

_“Promise?”_

_“I promise.”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Heyyy! I’m back guys! My schedule is pretty stressful right now, but I just had to finish this chapter. I really want to update this work’s summary by including a part of the ff but I don’t know which one to pick!!! Do you have any favourite quotes? Feel free to share them because I am really indecisive...
> 
> Also I have a profile pic now, yay.  
> Feedback is definetly appreciated (honestly kudos are great but this feels much more like there is someone at the other end of the screen) so please take the time to-idk-write your heart out  
> ("Really? The diner owner conveniently remembered exactly when she visited?"/ "Please write more about Cat&Jade as friendship goals!"/ "What was there first: The chicken or the egg?"- I have no idea about the last one, tbh- I didn’t have philosophy or biology in high school), whatever it is, I would love to read it.  
> Title: Lucifer
> 
> Goodnight^^


	9. Run away, hit the road, don’t commit, you're full of it

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Small secret gets revealed, big secret gets revealed, TW for abuse and eating disorders .  
> Also, I have to divert from canon to give them the space to be a healthy relationship after the drama is over.  
> No rottweilers. Sorry.

_I don't want just another hug and a kiss goodnight_

_Catchin' up calls and a date sometimes_

**May 5 th , 2010**

Jade didn’t mean for anyone to find out.

Not the- let’s say issues- that she had with her step dad, that actually hadn’t been on her mind at all.

For the past two weeks, she had been living with her other family. Whenever she needed space from them, the little silver key in her bottom drawer gave her all the freedom she desired.

And surprisingly, the concept worked. She had confessed her relationship to her family at dinner one night, and after a bunch of disapproving comments from her father’s side, Evelyn had cleared her throat and stated that “He should come over for a game night or something”. In general, her stepmother and her had been much closer than ever before. Jade always asked before she went to see Beck; Evelyn always allowed her to go (which was probably the only reason why Jade bothered asking in the first place).

It wasn’t a perfect system and there were days where Jade fell back into her old habits of ignoring everybody and isolation herself in her room, but all in all the household was looking more put together every day. Just because her parents approved of their relationship, them sneaking around didn’t stop. Beck didn’t talk about his parents much and Jade knew that he withheld many insults they had uttered against her.

She wasn’t stupid. She knew that they hated her guts.

This morning, out of all possible days, Beck had gone to school early for his Screenwriting class and Jade was left almost getting caught by his mom. Eventually, the woman had accepted that the noise Jade made while accidentally ripping Beck’s “Care Bears on fire” poster a little could have been a racoon in her backyard. By the time Jade was able to safely exit the Silver Streak, she was thirty minutes late for Improv class with Sikowitz.

Thirty minutes were unfortunately enough time for Cat to reveal her secret.

The bell rang and Sikowitz burst through the door so perfectly timed, Beck swore he could have been waiting in the hall to have his entrance be right on time (He probably did). “Students of the fine arts and discoverers of the hidden magic. That. Is. Acting!” A normal student would title this sentence “Greeting of a teacher on drugs right before getting fired”; students of Sikowitz called it a regular Wednesday morning.

“What has been going on in your life since we last saw each other? Cat?” The redhead looked up and ran to the front to share her weekend with everybody. “So first I was in the hospital with my brother because he tried to eat a lamp, not like, the whole lamp, he took it apart first, _he’s not crazy_ …” André frowned, but Beck just let it slide. That was by far not the weirdest thing that Cat had ever told him. “Anyway, the doctor said he has to stay until Monday but then he bit another patient because he wanted his pudding so he might have to stay longer in case he has any new diseases. And on Sunday I bought a pair of wings for my unicorn Sprinkles, DOES ANYBODY WANT TO SEE PICTURES?”

Nobody answered.

Beck saw Cat’s bottom lip trembling and he just couldn’t take it anymore. “Sure Cat, I want to see Sprinkle’s new wings!” Overly enthusiastic? Yes. Did Cat notice? No. She pulled out her phone and showed Beck the pictures on her camera roll. “Here are the pink ones, oh and the red ones; they match my hair, see?”

She swiped along multiple pairs of almost identical attachable wings, until she came across a picture of a movie poster. “The Scissoring? Since when do you watch horror movies?” Technically, Cat was 15 years old and her brother should have made her toughen up by now, but since Beck had once seen her run out of class screaming because an actor was wearing a big hat that scared her, he was unsure if she could take this.

“Oh, I don’t. But Jade wants me to watch it.” She giggled. “She likes disturbing me!” Beck turned to see what André had to say about that, but he just shrugged. “I guess... But don’t you think that movie is a little…” Cat interrupted him. “It’s not just the normal movie, it is the extended edition with commentary from the writers and director. And since it’s Jade’s birthday today, I’m giving her tickets for us to see it at the Rooftop Cinema Club on Friday!”

“Wait what? Jade said her birthday was July 26th !” “She says that to everybody because she doesn’t like being a Taurus. But I saw her ID. It’s May 5th .” “How the hell am I supposed to get a present for her today?” Beck was manhandling his hair with his hands now; he subconsciously felt the need to pace up and down the room. “Relax man, didn’t she get you a can of lemonade?” Right. She did. He never asked why because he didn’t want to come across as impolite but it was a little odd.

Jade was from a messed-up family, she probably didn’t have any birthday traditions what so ever. In his despair, he almost forgot Sikowitz. “We can figure this out, right? How about we spend today’s lesson to help Beck find a present for Jade?”

And he forgot that too. His improv teacher was unusual to say the least but he was also extremely chill about bending the rules once in a while. “Suggestions?” He was now up at the board and wrote down “JADE” in big letters before underlining the name. “What comes to mind when you think of her?” “Scary” Beck turned to his friend so fast that he almost pulled a muscle in his neck. He held his hands up in response. “I’m just being honest dude”

“André, thank you for your input but maybe we are getting off topic. What does she like?”

“Hurting people” Robbie nodded along with what Rex had said. The class as a whole muttered agreement. “Not helpful.” “She likes going to places where famous people died… Or where she feels they will die.” The whole class went silent and looked up to Cat, who had taken a seat on the stairs leading up to the small stage. Sikowitz wasn’t big on the whole “Stay in your place” rule. For all he cared, his students could be dangling from the ceiling for the whole time.

“Thank you! That actually is helpful Cat. Good job!” She smiled at his and flirtatiously pulled a streak of red hair behind her ear. “I’m so creative!” “Okay so where…” The door was opened and Sikowitz instinctively jumped in front of the board. The man had strong survival instincts that came in handy in times like these.

“Sorry I’m late guys, what did I miss?” Sikowitz tried to hide the board from Jade while simultaneously cleaning it. This way he looked like he was an animal, scratching it’s back on it. “Oh… Nothing…. We were just…. Beck why don’t you recap for Jade?” Wow… That sounded not suspicious at all.

“We…” He stood up while walking towards Jade, “Were just talking about how improvising can help a person, that is stuck in a very unexpected situation…” Beck put his hands on his girlfriend’s shoulders and carefully forced her to switch places with him to allow their teacher to get rid of any remaining evidence. “Where they must make up something on the spot to distract someone else…” Sikowitz gave him a thumbs up to signal that he was done, “And how it is definitely not lying.”

He released her shoulders, gave her a kiss on the head and returned to his seat. “I missed you.”

“Sorry… I faced some obstacles while getting here.”

The rest of the day was rather normal, they had second period together (Craft Services) and separate classes on Elective line in third period. In between classes, Tori talked about how she escaped Trina this morning, when her ill sister had made her miss first period. “She seriously thought I would miss school for the whole day just to run after her and have tissues ready whenever she needs them. Like I am her personal assistant or something!” For what had to be the first time ever, Jade didn’t mind listening to Tori’s problem. She and Beck where curled up on the sofa in the student lounge, whispering things into each other’s ear.

Beck was lucky, their math teacher was sick as well and they had no fourth period. He waited for her in front of the auditorium and covered her eyes as soon as she was in reach. “Beck?”” Just go with it.” As soon as they got to the car, he pulled out a jacket that had left on the back seat and draped it over her head. “Classy as always”, she remarked and clumsily sat down in the drivers’ seat. He laughed and walked around the car. “Well I need both hands to drive, sorry.”

After a ten minute ride, Beck parked his car in an alley and opened the door for Jade. “This is the first and last time you help me out of the car, understood?” “Sure.” He picked up his backpack and placed his hands over Jade’s eyes again as she pulled the jacket form her head. “Just toss it into the car.” “I can’t see the car you moron.” Oh. “It is right in front of you.” In an uncoordinated motion, Jade threw the jacket into the car and crossed her arms in front of her chest. “Now what.”

“Give me a second.” He guided her into a suburban street and stopped in front of an abandoned house.

When Jade was finally able to open her eyes, she blinked into the sunlight and gasped. “Is this…” “The Los Feliz Murder Mansion? Yep!” Her eyes grew wide. “I… How did you know? I’ve always wanted to go but I don’t like busses and it’s like an hour by foot and…. Oh my god Beck!” He just smiled and kissed her. “Happy Birthday.” Her face fell. “Who do I have to murder for snitching?” “I don’t reveal my sources.” “It was Cat, wasn’t it?” “Hmmm… Yeah. How about we focus on the horror house for now?”

“Do you know what happened here?” Her eyes were lit up with fascination. “I heard a family was killed here.” She didn’t seem to hear him. “Picture this: This mansion was once the peaceful home of a family of three. It’s December 6, 1959. Out of the blue, Dr. Harold Perelson, the father, murders his wife with a hammer, beats his 18-year-old daughter, and then ends his own life using a mixture of water, acid, and tranquilizer pills. Nobody bought the house in fifty years. Then, the new owners brought their stuff inside but they never stayed overnight. Their son inherited the house, but he didn’t stay there either. Neighbors said that even though they saw his parents bring boxes inside, they never changed the interior design. Not one bit!

If we get close enough, we should be able to see a 1950s-style television set, a Christmas tree, and supposedly, neatly-wrapped gifts. The whole living room remains the exact same as it was that one December night.” Even though everything Jade had just said was scary as hell, and maybe André was right and that made her scary by association, Beck couldn’t help but fall in love with her even more at the sight of her smile, looking completely caught up in her own world.

If he was dating Wednesday Addams, then so be it.

“One trespasser said that the house is haunted and that she was bitten by a black widow spider after trying to break in. It’s so cool!”

“I think that’s my cue. I read that they have a security system and the sun won’t go down until 7:30 but we can have a picnic right here. I mean not a real picnic since I found out about your birthday this morning, but I packed some food for myself at home and I bought orange juice after first period!”

They sat down on the dry grass and Beck opened his backpack. He pulled out the orange juice, a sandwich, a cookie, an apple and his water bottle. “Sorry, like I said it’s not a lot.” With a grin, Jade reached out to the food. “Dips on the cookie!”

* * *

**May 10 th, 2010**

They were supposed to stay like this, arm in arm, not an inch of space between them, and then they didn’t.

It was foolish to think that they had solved the jealousy problem once and for all, but neither of them had seen this blow coming. It started when Jade found out about the picture of her boyfriend and Alyssa Vaughn. Or when the paparazzi had taken the photo. Or when Beck signed up for that yoga class, not knowing the famous daughter of a billionaire was in it as well.

In retrospect, it probably started with the fact that she had given him lemonade for his birthday, or the whole thanksgiving thing, or the fact that their relationship wasn’t exactly built on solid ground. But everything truly escalated with the picture. She saw it after spending the night at his RV. Jade was so mad that she took the wool rock from his old science project and threw it in his direction. She missed, and it wasn’t heavy either, but the atmosphere was colder anyways.

Jade had grown over the past six months, she was less jealous of Tori, hence less aggressive towards her, and she tolerated Beck having female friends. But Alyssa was many things she wasn’t, for example rich, well liked, famous and in her mind maybe even prettier. Also, she was clearly into Beck.

All of those things were adding up to a bad day for her, but what hurt the most was the fact that he hadn’t told her. Shouldn’t boyfriends tell their girlfriends about meeting famous people? This was Los Angeles, but still. Beck wasn’t even open to discussing it.

Because Alyssa Vaughn brought all of those feelings back again, the hate, the frustration, and worst of all the fear. The stakes got higher every day. Aside from worrying about losing Beck and having to live with the humiliation that he would have moved on to a better girlfriend, she would also be at risk of loosing her friends.

Cat was on her side, always, but she liked hanging out with Robbie, Beck, Tori, André and maybe even Rex. Robbie was beneath her so he didn’t matter, André was a good friend to her but that was thanks to their relationship, and because Jade hated/ used to hate Tori, the girl wasn’t a fan of Jade either. Their relationship held the group together, without him everything in her life was messed up.

“Tori, tori, can you come here?” Perfect. Now Tori was a mediator in their fight even though she was clearly biased. At least she seemed equally uncomfortable being there. Good.

“If you were my girlfriend...” Jade let out a humorless laugh. This was getting better by the second. “Great way to start the question!” He ignored her and went on. “Would you be all freaked out that I'm just friends with Alyssa Vaughn?” “Who cares what she thinks?” There was no way in hell this was a fair assessment of the situation. Tori was a suck up; she would probably let Beck do whatever he wanted if it meant he was her boyfriend.

“Honestly, I wouldn't love it.” Huh! Maybe the brunette was useful once in a while after all. “ I care what she thinks.” But then she was on Beck’s side again, and Jade told her to leave. Which she didn’t. Because Beck told her to stay. He had the power. As always.

“All right, you know what?” _Bad idea_

**Milkshakes at the diner, erased by the can of lemonade.**

“Tell me what.” _He knew where this was going_

**Picnic at the murder mansion versus turkey left untouched.**

“We're done.” _Mutual stabbing until they both bled out_

**The sound of kisses and whispered words of love drowned out by yelling and fighting.**

“So, you're breaking up with me?” _Why would you give up on us?_

“Yeah, I am.” _You gave up first._

**She walked away.**

“You're being ridiculous.” _Please don’t leave me_

“What do you care? I'm not your girlfriend anymore!” _Goodbye Beck_

She sat alone at lunch. Jade felt awfully pathetic. Tori and André joined her, probably because Beck wasn’t there, and Tori sneaked her a sympathetic smile. In a universe without Beck, oh how wonderful that would have been right now, Tori and her could have been friends. She came to think that without their initial conflict, her, Cat and herself would have been a great trio. Stupid boys always had to ruin everything.

“I broke up with Beck. Okay? I dumped him.” A car pulled into the parking spots next to the Asphalt Café.

“Is that Alyssa Vaughn?” Tori was completely distracted by the girl. Jade’s head snapped back. “Yeah, so?” “Nothing, she's gross. French fry?” Jade was honestly asking herself how this girl ever got the lead in a play with those acting abilities. She appreciated the attempt though. And Tori had caught herself much faster than André. “Gross? Look at her. Oh, that girl is smoking hot. I'm serious!” Like she said, boys. He was almost drooling on her.

Upon seeing Jade’s hurt face, he noticed his mistake. “I should shut up.”

“Look, he didn't mean to say that.” Didn’t he though? He was right, she was attractive, but shouldn’t your friends at least try to be polite and lie to you? _She would never think of André and Tori as her friends, obviously._

 _“_ I don't care. If Beck wants to date that, I hope he has tons of fun with it.”

* * *

**May 11 th, 2010**

“Jade?” She didn’t mean to come to Tori, out of all people. But she really didn’t knew where else to go. Cat was out of town with her make up class, André was too close to Beck. So, she had to get creative.

“This kite is broken.”” Okay? And?” “I was just walking around, and I saw this kite stuck in a bush, and... It's broken, someone needs to fix it.” She was the kite. She was broken. She needed fixing.

“You want me to fix your kite?” Didn’t she get it? 

” Will you forget about the stupid kite?” “I'm sorry I brought it up.” Apparently, Vega wasn’t big on metaphors. She had no choice but to just say it. “I want Beck back!” A sob that she didn’t mean to let out escaped from her throat. Tori cleared her throat.

“Jade, if you wanna get back together with Beck, then why don't you just tell him?” That was the problem, wasn’t it? She hated to admit that she was too proud to do that. 

“If I do that then we will never be on the same level ever again!” “Not to be mean, but why are you coming to me for help?” That was the next problem. Apart from the fact that few other people were available, she didn’t trust most of them to comfort her. But she would never tell that to her former nemesis.

“Because I don't want anyone who's cool to see me like this.”

“You could just say it is because we are friends.” “Well we’re not”, Jade shot back at her. She wasn’t that desperate after all. “But if you help me, maybe we could be.” “So, if I help you, I get a mean friend and a broken kite!”

Tori knew it was more than that. She had witnessed Jade socially destroying people who called Cat dumb many times. Threatening teachers that underappreciated André. Even slap students that were trying to bully Robbie. If scratching the cars of girls, that had flirted with Beck, was beneficial for him was debatable, nevertheless, Jade had her friends‘ back. 

* * *

**May 15 th, 2010**

Tori held her promise to Jade, she talked to Beck, he told her about that can of lemonade. But Tori didn’t give up. She cared more about the creepy girl than she would ever admit, so she did what any good friend of a strained couple would do:

She made them both come to the same building, her father’s station, and made sure they took the elevator together. Then she snuck up to the room that had the elevator manual and stopped it. Tori was long time Gossip Girl fan and if being locked in an elevator helped Dan& Serena as well as Serena& Blair, it had the ability to bring Beck& Jade back together, too.

“This can’t really be happening”

Jade was hitting the elevator buttons frantically.

“I’m pretty sure it’s stuck and it won’t start moving because you hit it enough times.” Beck was massaging his temples; he didn’t have time for this. “I really have to give Tori’s dad her phone. She left it at school yesterday and she asked me to return it.”

“Do you think I want to be here? I have to watch my little brother.” “Since when do you watch your little brother? Don’t you, like, hate him?” “I’ve changed. Not that you would notice!” She didn’t mean to just shoot that at him with venom in her tone, but was she lying? She had changed. She was proud of that.

“Jade…” Beck groaned. Jade snapped. “Look I’m sorry that being here with me brings you so much pain, but I didn’t lock us in here so how about you behave civil for like, ten minutes, until someone gets us out of here!”

“It’s not that. My head just hurts a lot. Can you please be a little quieter?” Suddenly she was very interested in her boots. “Sure, sorry. Why does your head hurt?” “Uhm… Doesn’t matter.” “No seriously you don’t look good, when did you last eat?” “This morning”, he mumbled into his chest. “Beck.” She lifted his chin to look at him, really look at him. His eyes were bloodshot and his forehead was wrinkled. “Are you okay? Because I feel like you’re lying to me.”

Eating had always been its own thing for Beck. It wasn’t about the way he looked, he liked his body. But his stepmom was cooking all the food in their house, and he didn’t want to give her the satisfaction. It started with her cooking, and progressed to limit all the food he ate. He didn’t consciously limit himself since he was fourteen, but the pattern of overthinking every bite, controlling the food he felt like he deserved, his body just adapted to that.

He was a little thin, always had been, but he had no idea whether that came from his eating schedule or his genetics. Not eating was a choice, not eating was giving him control, not eating was giving him a way to punish himself for what he did wrong. But now, he felt nauseous after more than three bites of every meal. He tried to eat when he was with Jade, she was dealing with enough and he didn’t want to drag her into this too.

He would never forgive himself if she started skipping meals as a new way of self-harm as well.

She could read it in his eyes, the shame of having her see him like this, hurt, unable to live after the same principle he had tried to force on her, _never punish yourself, you don’t deserve it._

But he wasn’t being hypocritical here, just realistic. Jade was so smart, beautiful, talented, caring… She might have been haunted, but she was still trying to put good out into the world. He, on the other hand, was messed up. It was different because he _did_ deserve it. Wasn’t that always the point? People looked at them and saw the Beauty and the Beast but they got it all wrong: He was the one with the truly ugly soul.

She was just scared, lashing out at random people to hide a scratched glass wall of emotions, the one inside of him was smashed. Anybody who tried to clean up the mess, or god forbid fix him, was risking cutting themselves, metaphorically speaking. Maybe even literally. After all, he hadn’t seen Jade’s bare arms in a while.

“I last ate an apple for lunch yesterday.” And now he was standing in front of this angelic girl and he couldn’t bring himself to tell her that a part of him had been proud of that. He used to go days without eating just to see how far he could push his body; he should be able to take this. A tear escaped his eye. He knew that none of this was healthy, but fuck healthy, right?

“I’m so sorry” It was a whisper, but since they were alone in the elevator, he caught it. There were tears in her eyes as well. “I never meant to hurt you.” He shook his head so hard it made him see light orbs all over again. “No...” He lost his balance but she held him upright. “This has nothing to do with you I swear.” His nose was running and his mouth felt equally dry and sticky. He didn’t want Jade to get back together with him because she thought that she couldn’t leave him alone.

That was abuse, and he would never _ever_ do that to her.

She hugged him.

And even though this was a screwed-up situation, even if he had never meant for her to find out, for a moment his problems didn’t matter because they had each other, and in an elevator shut off from the rest of the world, he felt safe.

“I missed you.” So quiet. So small. Yet so important to him.

Her eyes wandered up to meet his.

Beck gently took her face in his hands and kissed her.

A loud bang sent the two of them stumbling apart into opposite corners. “I am so sorry that we kept you waiting for...” A police officer in jeans, a shirt and a tie appeared behind the now opened elevator doors. He checked his watch. “Twenty minutes. You must be Beck and Jade.” Beck nodded and his hand went into his hair again. “Yeah. Who are you?” “Oh. My bad. I’m Tori’s father. She told me that you have her phone and you her wallet? Man, she really is forgetful.” Beck and Jade exchanged questioning looks.

_I promise I will help you get back together with Beck._

Oh. OH. “Here is the wallet, I have to go.” Jade practically stormed out of the elevator and took the next flight of stairs she spotted. She wasn’t going back into that elevator. Her thoughts were racing on the way down. Tori had promised to get them back together. Someone had locked them in the elevator. Tori had made them both go to the station at the same time. But when Jade had texted her earlier, she hadn’t replied. Those were a lot of coincidences.

Tori’s father was a cop ever since Trina was born, André had joked about that once. Tori had never moved in her life. Tori grew up at the LAPD Hollywood Division. After fifteen years at the station, it was likely that she knew where the elevator was controlled from.

_Or maybe it was just all in her head._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was on vacation, now I am back. As always, this chapter is finished way past the bedtime I set for myself, but anyways.  
> This one crashed the record of the longest chapter, previously held by the chapter before. No promises for the next one, since it will cover a whole freaking year. My cat yelled at my while I wrote this. No, not meowed at me. Yelled. 
> 
> If there are any episodes between 1x05 and 2x06 that you want to have covered in the next chapter pls write it down below so I can plan. Yes, even I plan sometimes. This chapter's unnecessary google research includes everything about the Los Feliz Murder Mansion, the LAPD stations, HA classes, Hollywood Arts as a location and how fast the characters get to other locations, and so on. 
> 
> I hope you enjoyed those details. 
> 
> EDIT: OMG I JUST READ IN AN ITERVIEW WITH JOHN MULANEY THAT JUST CAME OUT THAT HE WENT THERE AS WELL!!! AND IT WAS LIKE A WHOLE THING!!!  
> Title: Mimi (Rent)
> 
> Pls leave kudos and comments^^  
> (P.S The title is a reference. As always.)


	10. I’m the happiest I’ve ever been and I blame you

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Little vignettes over the course of half a year.  
> Featured episodes: Tori The Zombie, Beck’s Big Break, Freak The Freak Out, One completely made up story that I am going to continue in the following chapters.  
> TW non-con for the last one.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was going to write a storyline similar to the last one that ended up making the cut, but I really had to collect my own thoughts on what I wanted to write and what fitted the plot.

_I love that we're rebels, and we still believe_   
_We're the kind of crazy people wish that they could be, yeah_

**May 16 th, 2010**

“Action!”

“I don't know.”

“Oh, come on! Why can't you admit that you're in love with me?”

“Why are you in love with me?”

“Because you're beautiful. Look at your face in the moonlight.”

“I can't.”

“You can.”

“No, a person can't look at their own face, It's impossible.”

“Then marry me, And I'll buy you a thousand mirrors”

“But that's so many!”

_Jesus Christ._

It was hard not to make fun of Tori after the way she excelled at playing the oblivious beauty. Seriously, the part was so cut out for her, Jade almost forgot she was mad because she only got cast as her understudy.

The dialog of “Uptown/ Downtown” wasn’t exactly what Jade defined as high quality theater, but Beck was a main character in it so she didn’t mind watching the scenes that she wasn’t in. Her role, Fallon, only had two scenes in the second act, so she spent most of her rehearsal time mocking Tori.

What a great job, she thought. Jade hadn’t thanked Tori for the whole elevator stunt she pulled, even though she was impressed with the criminal genius she was apparently dealing with. Maybe the girl wasn’t so stupid after all.

A deafening noise ripped her out of her thoughts. Sinjin was an idiot. Whoever the hell had put Sinjin in charge of lighting and sound effects was an even bigger idiot. Probably Marty. He was also the only teacher she was aware of that went by his first name.

“What up with the disco?!” For real, Sinjin was going to ruin this production by pressing one wrong button during the show, she could already see it happen. “I'm sorry. I hit the wrong thing.” “No! 15 years ago, your mother gave birth to the wrong thing!”

Jade was _trying_ to be nicer; she really was. But she couldn’t take anymore incompetence than Cat and Robbie in her life (not to mention her little brother), after all nobody was paying her to be nice to them.

“That’s it for today guys, we will see each other tomorrow at five and …” That’s when Jade’s phone started beeping. An email notification from school.

“Guys, guys, everyone shut up a second.” Beck leaned over her shoulder to read the screen. “Whatcha got?”

“An e-mail from Principal Eikner: To all students involved in our school's production of Uptown/ Downtown, Sofia Michelle will be in Los Angeles on Monday, the 17th and will be personally attending your opening night performance.”

All hell broke loose. Marty disappeared to the toilet, Robbie was being bullied by Rex, Beck was nervous and Tori was once again proven to be useless. How was it even fair for their teacher to cast a girl that didn’t know who Sofia Michelle was as the lead?

* * *

**May 17 th, 2010**

It was a beautiful day for Beck. Jade had stayed overnight, which was the main reason he was so happy. He was a heavy sleeper and she wasn’t, but because she felt safer when she was close to him, she was able to mostly sleep through the night in his RV.

Waking up with Jade in his arms was great, almost as great as opening the doors of the Silver Streak to be hit by the fresh and warm summer air he was used to. She managed to convince him to have breakfast with her at the diner, which meant that he had to sneak away from his parents.

A “morning mom and dad I have to be at school early today because of the musical, anyway have a good day and I’ll see you at the performance okay bye!” was all it took.

“I’m really proud of you, you know that?”, Beck later asked Jade while she was sipping on her milkshake and he was trying to eat his sandwich. She answered with her mouth half full. “Why?” “Because you haven’t once complained about not getting the lead in front of Tori.” She laughed. “Nah, the role is just too perfect for her.” “You could have played it just as well. You’re a great actress and you don’t deserve all of the teachers choosing her over you in every play.” She looked up from the depth of her “Strawberry Surprise” and gave him an innocent smile. “You never know. Maybe Tori gets into some kind of accident today…”

“Jade!” “Calm down I was just kidding. She can be the lead for all I care, I’m going to be the best hotel manager Sofia Michelle has ever seen.” He smiled. That attitude seemed almost… Healthy?

They were even more surprised when Tori stumbled into rehearsal looking like a zombie.

Her modeling class had taken a field trip until 3 pm, and Jade was quick to point out the irony that Tori was looking absolutely hideous and not at all like a model for anything. She promised that Cat and Trina would bring the solvent in time for the show, and Jade tried not to get her hopes up too high; everyone else was an anxious mess.

And Beck? He didn’t know what to think. Tori had been cast as the lead, she was a good actress and an even better singer, but Jade… Jade had earned herself a lead role. Since Mean Girls, his girlfriend had been starring in multiple small productions, two leads, fifteen main characters, and, since Tori had been accepted, nine times understudy for Tori. It just wasn’t fair.

Jade was also able to sing and act and Tori still wasn’t off book even though it was opening night. He tried to distract himself from manifesting Jade as the lead by checking on the opening night present he had brought for Jade. They had a tradition of giving each other small stuff when one of them scored the lead in a school production, and he had gotten her a necklace.

Well, it wasn’t just an ordinary necklace. It was a golden ring on a necklace, merchandise for the karaoke bar they had shared their first kiss in. He was proud of himself for thinking of it. They hadn’t gone back recently, but the rings came up in a conversation they had with the son of the owner, who happened to be in their Costume class. 

Time passed and Tori’s rescuers were nowhere to be found, so Marty had no choice but to ask Jade to go on as the lead. The role of Fallon went to a transfer named Meredith. Beck was cleared from everything he was in charge of doing before the play to help Jade go over his lines, choreography and songs. Mainly he was just calming her down.

“Is there any way Trina and Cat were overexaggerating when they told you they wouldn’t make it?” “I’m positive that if anything they were underexaggerating their time.” Jade was scribbling on a blank page in her book while nervously drumming the fingers of her other hand onto the table. “What if we change the story and just pretend that the zombie thing on her face was intentional?” “The plot doesn’t work that way. My- our character has to choose between being loved for her beauty or her personality. She has to be gorgeous or the play isn’t about the dangers of shallowness anymore.” “What if- “

“Jade.” Teal eyes met hazel ones and for the second time now, Tori saw that Jade was scared. “Look I wanted this probably just as much as you did. But it’s my fault that I let Cat mess with my face the day before opening night, I take full responsibility for that. Obviously, I want to strangle my sister right now because if she hadn’t stopped for ice cream, they might have gotten here in time. But they haven’t. You know the lines. I let the whole cast down. You’re not going to make the same mistake. I think you’re going to be great.”

Jade gulped. She almost thanked her not-a-friend, but then she remembered that she had some respect left for herself. With the last bits of confidence and calm she had, Jade flipped her hair and sighed. “Whatever. But you owe me.” “I’m pretty sure we’re even.” _Right._ The elevator thing.

_“Suddenly. My choice is clear. I knew when only you and I were standing here.”_

_“And beautiful is all I see”_

_“It’s only you, I know it’s true, it has to be…”_

After the show (& the feedback from Sophia Michelle), Jade pulled Beck into her dressing room and guided his face towards hers to kiss him. He responded by kissing her back and pulling her closer with an arm around her waist. Making out in semipublic places wasn’t new for them; the students of Hollywood Arts were more or less used to seeing them curled up in each other by now, kissing as if their lives were depending on it. They could have stayed like this forever, warm hands on each other’s skin. But then Jade saw her backpack on the chair closest to them and gently pulled away from him.

“Wait.” “Are you okay?” “Yeah I just forgot, I have an opening night present for you.” A tiny smile appeared on his lips. “So do I. Wait, let me get it.” Beck had put the necklace in a small, square shaped box, while Jade’s gift was in a wool bag the size of a pair of scissors. He sincerely hoped that that was not what it contained. They exchanged the little packages.

“On three?” “On three or after three?” “I don’t know like one… two… three… What are you doing?” “You said on three.” “No, I was giving an example so- you know what, let’s just randomly open it.” After that, Jade couldn’t open the box because her fingernails weren’t long enough. He tried to help her, but his weren’t long enough either, and the box was completely stuck. So much for a romantic gift exchange. They got Tori, of all people, to help.

She loosened the box and then went back to get the rest of the zombie make up off of her face.

_On the count of three (well, actually after the count of three) they both simultaneously fished a necklace out of their respective packaging, both with a golden ring._

* * *

**June 16 th, 2010**

“Can you believe it’s been an entire year?” Beck and Jade were strolling around the halls of Hollywood Arts, hands intertwined, on their way to Sikowitz’s classroom. “A year since what?” Jade stopped an lifted her chin slightly, to look at her boyfriend. They were in no hurry to get to Improv class because Sikowitz was almost always late.

“A year since we first met. See?” He scrolled through his camera roll and showed her a selfie of him holding a script, looking cautiously optimistic. “This was the day of the auditions.” “Looking handsome as always”, Jade remarked. Then she frowned. “Who did you take the picture for?” “Myself. I wanted to be able to look back to that day in case I got in. You know, to remind myself of how hard I worked and how grateful I am to be here.” Then he added: “It helps to look at the picture whenever I feel like I don’t deserve to be here” He almost regretted saying it when he noticed the hurt in Jade’s expression.

But then she caught herself and nodded. “You earned your spot, Beck.”

_He knew that she was telling the truth._

_He earned his spot at this school._

_He deserved to be here._

_He belonged here._

**July 18 th, 2010**

“GLASS CEILINGS- CAST LIST”, she read.

And “Riley Williams- Jade West”

Tori had auditioned as well.

Not an understudy.

The lead.

Wow.

Hollywood Arts had two plays that were produced at the same time, “Glass Ceilings” being one, and “Polaroids- A lost dream” being the other one. Jade had only auditioned for the first one since there were no female main characters in André’s play. Beck had auditioned for a main character in “Polaroids”. Normally, this wouldn’t be a problem, but in this case, it was.

Because Beck’s character had a girlfriend. Meredith. Her dad owned a cupcake company and she had already replaced Jade in “Uptown/Downtown”. Beck had talked it over with her, the play contained two, short kisses between them. That didn’t prevent Jade from becoming more and more jealous.

Meredith wasn’t even a real person. She did, what other people did. She laughed, when other people laughed. She was an empty shell, filled only by the personality of the person opposite of her. She was a human blank page, and Jade wasn’t surprised that this made her a great actress.

She didn’t care. Beck wouldn’t cheat on her, especially not with someone as boring as Meredith.

_Right?_

* * *

**September 6 th, 2010**

He turned on his phone, hands trembling.

Password: 032310

Contacts-Starting with J- J❤️

He had thought about saving her number under “Girlfriend” or “Babe”. She had voted for the simple “Jade”. The last time she had went through the contacts on her phone, he had seen his number under “Moron ❤️”. So much for that.

He didn’t reach her, twice. _Third time’s the charm, right?_

The third time, she actually picked up. “Dude I was almost thrown out of class, are you okay?”

“What would you say if I told you that I am going to play Melinda Murray’s waiter?” “YOU GOT THE PART?” “You’re damn right I did.” “Oh my god, Beck this is great! I’m so happy for you!” “Sorry if I got you into trouble, I just really wanted you to be the first to know.”

Silence.

“Jade?” He pressed the phone closer to his ear, this way he felt a little closer to her. The studio where they held auditions was an hour away from HA, and while he was aware of this, he still wanted nothing more than to hug her right now. “Yeah I’m still here. I can’t believe you actually got the part.” “Wow. You really have faith in my acting abilities, don’t you?” He chuckled.

“Don’t be stupid.” She hesitated before throwing in an “You’re the best actor I know.” Now he was the one that didn’t know how to respond. While their relationship was oftentimes a space for both of them to relax and hide from the outside world, they were still a little cautious around each other.

Occasionally, one of them would say something that took the whole thing a step further, like a million different first I love you’s. The first “You’re the most important person to me” (Beck, January), the first “I was exhausted and you’re the one I feel most at home with” (Jade, March), the first “I heard the ambulance at our school and I needed to see that you’re okay.”(Beck again, May). Now this was definitely the first “I just really wanted you to be the first to know” and while it still felt like a big step; or rather jump if you thought about the way her stomach felt when he said it, she was comfortable hearing it.

* * *

**November 5 th, 2010 **

“First time here?” _Jade went to get a soda. Why couldn’t she have just waited a little bit? On the other hand, it might not have even mattered. Maybe the girls were waiting for her to leave._

“Um, yeah.” The girl leaned forward in an obvious attempt at flirting. _Why today?_

Beck had seen lots of straight couples that worked with a simple principal. The guys were usually overprotective of the girls. In bad cases, even possessive. Sometimes they were insecure, sometimes they knew that their girlfriends were to afraid or uncomfortable to tell an especially annoying guy off.

“If you get nervous, I'll hold your hand.”

For him and Jade, it was both. She was working on her insecurities, and sometimes her jealousy was annoying when aimed at partners for a school project or neighbors, or generally innocent girls that just happened to be in his life. But sometimes, it came in handy. They were both used to people hitting on them, but while Jade was scary enough to make most guys leave her alone, Beck was somehow completely unable to convey that he wanted to be left alone.

He had explained this to Jade in their first months of dating, because girls kept flirting with him, and he tried to be nice, and they didn’t take the hint. This meant that Jade kept getting upset, so he just told her one night. She didn’t judge him, she fought for him. He never felt unsafe around flirting girls but he wasn’t entirely comfortable either. Most of the time, he was happy to have her by his side. As bad as it sounded out loud, he didn’t have to be the bad guy if Jade pushed them away for him.

_He didn’t want to cause any drama, so he usually just politely avoided them until Jade came back._

Cat tried to help by interfering with their conversation, André didn’t want to get in the middle of anything and Robbie was at the other table with Rex and the Northridge girls. This task was way too big for Cat to be handling it alone.

“You have insane hair.” Hailey- or was it Tara? – started touching his hair. As friendly as he was able to be, he removed her hand from his hair. No reaction. She was tough.

“Yeah, uh, my hair was normal, And then one day. It just went insane. Sad story.”

“I like your story.” _Ew._

“He has a girlfriend.” _“Thanks Cat, at least you’re trying to help”_ , he thought.

“I don't see her.” _Just stop._

“Turn around. Now you see her.” _Finally._

“I don't see much.” _Oh. They were so going to get kicked out of Karaoke Doke. _

They did get kicked out in the end, but it had nothing to do with Jade.

He was mostly glad that he didn’t have to go back anymore.

* * *

**November 15 th, 2010**

It was mostly this way. With Jade protecting Beck from unwanted advances. Beck had a more subtle way of being protective. He knew that Jade could take care of herself, so he mostly let her deal with sleazy guys.

Mostly.

They were out to celebrate two days after the anniversary of their first kiss. Their real anniversary wasn’t until Thursday, but they wanted to take advantage of winning back Karaoke Doke. They had decided that it was a semi- date, since André was invited to join them, but had a special band practice until nine thirty. Sometime after nine, the two of them were sitting at the bar, and Beck had to go to the restrooms. Jade stayed back and texted Robbie about their homework for History. The guy was just way too unorganized.

She was too busy looking at her screen to see a guy, around twenty, approach their spot. “Hard day?” Her eyes pulled away from her pear phone in no time. Unlike Beck, she was quick to shut any kind of flirting towards her down. “No, I’m good.” “Good enough to accept a drink?” She rolled her eyes. “No thanks.” “Come on. I’m offering you a free drink here!” “I said no. I’m waiting for my boyfriend right now. Leave.” Why bother chatting with some random guy if in the end he would be pissed about her not wanting to go home with him?

He moved to sit down in the empty chair beside her. _Great._ Maybe this would work another way.

“I’m sixteen.” “So? You seem pretty mature.” This was getting bad. She turned around to look if she saw a familiar face at the entrance. But André wasn’t there. And there were only two toilets in this place, so it could take forever until Beck got back. She had to make a snap judgement here.

“Fine. If you don’t leave, I will.” She stood up but he pushed her back down. “Relax. I wasn’t trying to fight with you. Just talk to me.” “I already did. I told you to leave me alone.” She pressed the last sentence out. She was a little tired, and everything was loud and crowded. Nobody seemed to notice them. “I’m Ben. What’s your name?” She flinched when his hand made contact with her thigh, and it stayed there. At first, she squirmed back a little to get away from his touch, but he caught her when his other hand came to rest on her waist.

Jade tried to remind herself to breathe. The last guy that had gripped her waist like that was the reason she got expelled from her first middle school. She hadn’t seen him in years, but remembering his voice, the way he had smelled and the way he grinned at her was enough to make her want to crawl out of her skin _. The chairs that were closer to the center of the room were empty as well,_ she thought.

_Why did they have to choose the ones in the darkest corner?_

There was no more room for her to pull out of his grip, and when her back hit the wall, she had no other option but to struggle helplessly as he went in to kiss her. Her first instinct was to bite his lip, but he shoved his tongue into her mouth so quickly, that she had no chance of reacting. His hand moved up her thigh while the hand on her waist prevented her from breaking away. Fingers, that were gripping her skin hard enough to leave serious bruises; In this angle, Jade wasn’t able to slap or elbow him, she just whimpered when he shortly pulled away to catch his own breath.

She just wanted it to stop.

And then it did.

Suddenly, the hand on her thigh was gone, as was the one restraining her. Lights from the other room with the dance floor, noise from the people dancing and shouting over music that was way too loud, a thousand different smells ranging from perfume to food, it was all too much for her to realize that Beck was back. Currently, his arm was around the throat of the other guy. He was basically spitting things into his ear, but she wasn’t interested in coming any closer to hear what it was, after all, she wasn’t fully content yet. Beck ran a hand through his hair. There was a weird look in his eyes that Jade hadn’t ever seen before. Murderous.

That expression changed when his eyes met hers. She had pretty much sunken into herself, her whole body gone rigid, and her shoulders moved with every breath she took. Also, her eyes didn’t really seem to focus on him. Within seconds, he released her attacker to the ground and walked towards her. The next time she looked, the other guy was gone.

He pulled her into a hug and buried his face in her hair. “Come on let’s get out of her.” Fine by her. Beck left money on the table and made his way through the crowd of dancing people. She just shut her eyes and let him guide her outside.

They fell down on a bench nearby, and Beck pulled her into his chest once again. “It’s okay. I’m here. You’re safe.” It wasn’t okay, and they both knew that. He felt his shirt getting wet and once again cursed himself for leaving her alone in the first place. When she took her next shaky breath in between sobs, Beck caught a glimpse of her face. In the club, he could only see that her posture was a little off, but now he scanned her face for the first time since they got outside.

Her eyes were bloodshot and red, face wet, and she was shaking like crazy. “You should… Tell André that we’re not inside.” He shook his head and pulled a streak out of her tear-stained face. “He can wait.” For a while neither of them moved. Normally, Beck would have pulled her whole body onto the bench to lean into him, but that usually involved him having one hand on her thigh, and he wasn’t sure if she was okay with that right now. Instead, Beck moved his arm over the smaller girl’s shoulder and linked their fingers together for reassurance.

“Do you want to stay here for a little longer or do you want to be at home?” His arm was now loosely around her shoulder, and Jade had her head on his side. “I think I want to go home.” Her voice was thin, almost a whisper.

_Almost… Lost._

* * *

**November 16th, 2010**

Sikowitz was going on and on in his ramblings about past characters he had portrayed, even though it was pretty clear that nobody cared. Or at least, he didn’t. Jade wasn’t there. He had offered to have her stay at his place the previous night but she had declined that offer. Which was okay, obviously, he just wanted to do her a favor, but what if the reason she didn’t want to stay with him was because she was scared?

Either way, Beck was worried.

And André was mad.

Beck had forgotten to text him to cancel the karaoke evening, and he hadn’t felt like it was his place to tell his friend why. Knowing Jade, he might never find out.

The door opened and she let herself and her bag fall down in her usual chair, next to Beck. Sikowitz completely ignored her arrival, but Beck couldn’t stop glaring at her, checking for any evidence that she needed support. She, in return, didn’t say anything all lesson, which was a first. After the bell rang, Jade was the first one out the door, and he had to sprint to catch up with her in the main hall.

Beck reached for her wrist to drag her into the janitor’s closet, but she pulled away and headed inside on her own. He closed the door while she jumped onto the small shelf and crossed her arms in front of her chest. Beck was glaring at the girl, waiting for her to say something.

After she finally chose to be the first one to speak, all that came out was a strangled “I’m fine.”

He almost let out a laugh, but then just shook his head. “No, you’re not.”

“I could have managed to get out of there myself, I didn’t need your help.” “Okay.” Half expecting him to argue with her, she almost hissed something back at him, but stopped when she realized what he had said.

“What?” He took a careful step in her direction, and she didn’t move away from him, so he took that as a sign that she was okay with being close to him. “If you say you didn’t need me, then that’s how it was. But it’s not a bad thing to need help sometimes.” She was suddenly extremely interested in her shoes. “Hey.” He stepped forward and gently took her face in his hands to make her look at him. “This doesn’t say anything about you, okay?” For a second, she melted into his hand, before she jumped down and walked right past him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am back again and as always apologizing because it has been a while. The problem isn’t studying or vacation this time, but simply the fact that I want to write so many things and I always want to do the idea justice (I will definitely continue with the last storyline, in my humble opinion way to many fanfictions treat getting harrassed like a thing the characters forget about within 24 hours, so I will try not to do that). 
> 
> Also I kinda tried to prevent myself from reading other Bade fanfics so as not to copy them. Today I broke that rule and lost a bit of my motivation because the one I read was low key better. I know that it’s not a contest or anything but I feel mad at every idea I didn’t have and now obviously can’t use. 
> 
> Anyways, this is a split chapter (again) and I am running out of songquotes for the beginnings. I hope that the people that read this fic regularly (if existant at all) don’t loose faith in me, I swear i will finish this fic, it might just take longer. 
> 
> Also I put in a few references (musical theater and one to this ff itself) and had to make up play titles, which was the hardest and most annoying thing I ever had to do for this fic besides coming up with a way that Beck could discover the black eye thing. So, we are back to convenietly ignoring that certain musicals did not exist in 2010. Yay.
> 
> I recommended Ao3 to someone and they realized I was a writer and wanted me to send them a link... And I highkey panicked.  
> I recently gave a friend that likes Victorious a link and she read parts of it, but I don’t know how many. If you read this (which I hope u don’t) say hi.  
> @ All other writers of angsty shit you probably subconciously use to deal with stuff via your comfort characters, don’t have people you know read it, it feels really weird.  
> And I feel like I should write a little bit of smut but I also... don’t want to? Idk.
> 
> P.S: Sorry to the people that read the first published version of this chapter. I beta read it today and noticed that instead of "she wanted to crawl out of her skin" I wrote "she wanted to crawl out of her sink" which basically sounds like Jade is a sewage ghost that sometimes erupts from the sink of peaceful, suburban houses to kill innocent people. Not my intention since it is a serious scene, but still this was what I regard to be one of the funniest typos I have ever made. 
> 
> Title: Eleanor (The Good Place)
> 
> As always, feel heavily encouraged to kudo (Is that a verb?) and pls comment because that always makes me realize that actual people are reading this. Also if I made somthing difficult to understand or you have questions about future storylies, also feel free to comment.  
> XOXO, Girl that was planning on watching "You" on Netflix today, but forgot. Well.


	11. You're weird. We'll be friends.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This chapter: Jade and André friendship, Wok Star, Rex Dies, The Diddly Bops, Dale Squires and Jade growth! Also Jade&Cat as well as Jade&Sikowitz dynamic.

_Oh, and I know we're crazy, yeah_

_But I don't want "good" and I don't want "good enough"_   
_I want "can't sleep, can't breathe without your love"_

**November 19th, 2010**

Something was up.

André was used to all kinds of weirdness; Cat’s “Look I found a tree fairy”- weirdness, Robbie’s “Rex made me do it”- weirdness, even Jade’s “I keep dead butterflies on my wall”- level of weirdness. He had seen and heard things that seemed more like they were said by aliens than his friends, and he was okay with that.

  
In his eyes, Jade had turned Beck weird from the moment he’d laid eyes on the goth girl. Beck and Jade had an ever-changing dynamic; sometimes hotheaded, sometimes gentle, most of the time it was passionate. But ever since their date at Karaoke Dokie (the time they completely blew him off, he hadn’t forgotten or forgiven them for that part yet) something was different.

  
Beck had apologized to him about a million times, but had never actually been able to explain why they even left in the first place. Something about Jade not feeling well. But then why had she ignored her boyfriend for the entirety of this week? Why did she and Cat sit at a separate table at lunch? And why did she look so goddamn tired all the time?

Something was up. Obviously, it hurt to be mentally excluded by his best friend, but that was something that André was able to get behind if it truly wasn’t Beck’s story to tell. Beck was not the thing that kept him up at night. It was Jade.

  
Not to lie, Jade was scary as hell, and André used to not think much of her. And they barely knew each other. She was mean. He shouldn’t care about her at all.

  
But then again, she was a surprisingly good influence on Beck, and she had helped André with about thirty assignments by now. And sometimes they shared their lunch food. And she smiled at him more often. She was nice.

  
Truth be told, André Harris didn’t dislike Jade at all. In fact, he liked her enough to miss her snarky comments at lunch, and the way she didn’t filter any of her thoughts before saying them out loud. And he was worried. Because it wasn’t like Jade to be quiet in every class or forget to turn in papers on time.

Whatever is going on with her, Beck will fix it, he thought.  
But after Beck didn’t fix it for three days, he decided to do it himself.

“Do you need help with that?” Jade and him were in the same vocal class, and her hands were shaking way too much to allow her to fixate her sheets on the music stand. “No, I got it.” Already off to a good start. “Let me just…” He knew that meddling and giving Jade help that she didn’t want was generally a very, very bad idea. On the other hand, he needed to talk to her and he simply didn’t have the time to watch her try helplessly for another ten minutes.

  
“I said I got it! Just leave it!” “’Christ I was just trying to help.” “Trying to help doesn’t equal helpful! If I wanted someone to annoy me under the disguise of being helpful I’d get Beck but you don’t see him anywhere, do you?”  
It seemed like she had let all her anger out in one sentence, so André gave it a second, careful try.

“Is… Is everything okay between you two?” Jade finally gave up on the music sheets and turned around with an ice-cold smile on her lips. “Why should that be any of your business?” He hadn’t actually expected anything different. She hated being vulnerable, everyone knew that. “It’s not. But…”

He didn’t get that far before she interrupted him again. “Listen- I get it. Beck is your best friend and you’re just looking out for him or whatever but he’s fine.”

  
“Are you though?” He hadn’t planned on asking that. “What?” “You look tired. You don’t sit with us at lunch anymore.” “Stop pretending you care about me.” Now he was caught off-guard. “I do care.” She basically spat her next words. “No, you don’t! You only know me because of Beck and you didn’t want me to date him in the first place. Why would that have changed?”

Gotcha.

  
André took a desperately needed deep breath before he answered. “Because you’ve changed. Beck’s changed. Maybe I’ve changed. I don’t know. But I really want things to go back to the way they were.” “You’re full of shit.”

  
“It’s true! You know… What about…the fries? I can’t eat two medium portions but if I only eat one, I am still hungry. I need someone to share them with.”  
“I know what you’re trying to do and it won’t work. Eat your fries with Robbie for all I care.” “Robbie has this gross dip that tastes like carpet.”  
She almost laughed but immediately bit her lip at the first sign of it. “Please come back. I’ll do anything. I can’t take it anymore.” He quickly reached out his hand as a peace offering but she only took a startled step back. He frowned. “Thanks for the… heartfelt confession but it’s a little more complicated than that.”

“How? Whatever it is I’m sure you guys can work it out.” “We’re not even fighting.” “Wait you’re not?” She sighed. “But something happened, I can tell” “Leave it André.” It sounded tired but coming out of her mouth it was most definitely a warning.  
“I will. If you sit at our table again.” She shook her head. “Please? You don’t have to tell any of us what is going on. We miss you.”

  
With the last sentence she lifted her head and looked straight into his eyes. Or more, straight into his soul. “You begged me to come back.” “Sure.” “I only did it because you need someone to share your French fries with.” That gave him hope. “Does that mean you’ll do it?” “Ugh. Fine…” She pretended like it didn’t matter, but André knew that she was secretly just as happy as he was to be back.

  
He went in to hug her but was quickly stopped when she reached out for his chest to keep him at distance. “No hugging.” Not wanting to be touched wasn’t new or odd for Jade, but he could have sworn that there was something other than attitude in her eyes. There had been a flash of fear, tucked away as quickly as it had come.

  
“Fist bump then?” She seemed to consider this clearly beneath her ritual carefully, checking the entrance and windows to make sure nobody else was watching them, eyes wide and full of caution, before making a fist and gently knocking on his with it. “Like this?” she whispered. “Exactly like that.”

* * *

**January 5th, 2011**

“Jade, Cat, I want you girls on lighting.”  
Oh hell no.  
“Lighting?” “Yes, you pronounced it perfectly.”  
She heard Beck laughing at her as she fixated her eyes on Sikowitz.  
Her teacher liked teasing Jade and “getting her out of her comfort zone”, like today, when he had chosen to switch her from cast to crew for his one-act play. There were no mandatory tech classes at Hollywood Arts, but Sikowitz made everyone who didn’t take the elective help out as crew in his class. In other words: there was no escape.

“Tori, I want you to work with Sinjin’s team on special effects.” Even Tori’s job was better than moving around a spotlight. “Okay, but I know like nothing about special effects.” Was there anything she did know stuff about? Anything at all?

  
“We'll teach you.” The creepy tech crew nerds lead by Sinjin all stared at her in the most f-ed up way possible, licking their lips and tilting their head, all without blinking.

  
Apparently, they even almost scared Beck, because she could suddenly feel his arm wrapped tight around her shoulders, as if to pull her closer to him.

  
On second thought… Maybe lighting wasn’t that bad.

* * *

**January 12th, 2011**

“I love that they call this a catwalk. Because my name is Cat, and look, I'm walking.”  
The production had moved to the auditorium, and for opening night, everyone was scurrying around. Jade was tightening the last screw on one of the spotlights with a wrench, all while Cat was… being entertaining.

  
She was holding some of the equipment they would need later on, and Jade cursed herself again for letting her touch the delicate and expensive stuff at all. Cat was now strutting down the small space, moving her whole body to a non- existing beat. Even though the catwalk was only a few feet long, Cat somehow managed repeat the move almost eight times; she was nothing if not efficient. Her mouth was wide open with a mixture of excitement and joy. “Walking on the catwalk.”

  
Jade furrowed her eyebrows. Not today. “If someone was pushed off this catwalk and they landed on the floor really hard, do you think they'd live?” One day Cat would be grateful for the way that Jade’s dark humor had prepared her for the harsh realities of the world. That was the only reason Jade had said it.

Or maybe she just enjoyed messing with the redhead. “Why are you asking that?” Jade put on her most mysterious and creepy smile and looked straight into Cat’s eyes. “No reason.”  
Cat gasped, turned around and hurried away.  
Smart girl.

A while later, Sikowitz came out from backstage, holding his signature coconut (hopefully not the exact, same one, Jade thought). “Okay, everyone, we have 20 minutes before our play begins, now where is my coconut milk?” As he said that, he lifted up the coconut in his hands to drink from the straw sticking out of it.  
It was concerning.

“You're drinking it.”, Beck tried to help him out. “So am I.” With that, Sikowitz continued to walk in another direction. Strange. But not unusually strange.  
“Cat, don't turn on 21.” Jade had left her in charge of the lighting board while she was changing the lightbulb. She could have sworn that the tech crew left the broken one in on purpose for her to fix.

  
“Don't what?”, Cat shouted from upstairs. “Turn on 21.” “21 on”, Cat repeated. For a _very_ short and fatal amount of time, Jade had forgotten who she was talking to. Now she was paying the price for it. She realized her mistake, but it was already too late.

  
“No, no, no” But Cat had already put power on the wire Jade was touching. Jade immediately got electrocuted, hands trembling and eyes wide as she felt all of her body tense.

  
This was going to be a long day.

* * *

**January 17th, 2011**

Whenever Sikowitz was bored or needed students for something, it was always Tori, Jade, Beck, André, Cat and Robbie he asked, and usually in that order. He never actually said that they were his favorites, but he didn’t have to.

  
He was the one that saw Beck’s talent beyond his looks, Cat’s creativity behind her craziness, André’s acting talent beyond the fact that he was also a musician, and Jade’s screenwriting skills beyond, well, everything else. Besides that, he used Tori as his personal joker; for all the times he lacked an actor or singer, she was there.

  
Now this after-class meeting he had called in was just the latest proposal in a series of abnormal situations the gang had found themselves in because of Sikowitz.

  
“I am sure you are all familiar with Kevin Chase. The rich guy who owns those hotels in Vegas. Well, Kevin was my roommate in college and now he's extremely wealthy, and his little boy Is turning 4 years old this week. Kevin hired the Waggafuffles to perform a song at his son's birthday party…”

Jade sighed. She didn’t have all day for this, so she walked towards her teacher with her arm reached out. “I'll give you this dollar to get to the point.” “I couldn't possibly take your money.” With a grand gesture, Sikowitz took the bill out of her hands and put it into his pocket, all while keeping up eye contact with Jade. She winked and pointed at him. He just got her.

  
It wasn’t an exaggeration to say that Jade disliked most teachers. They were more focused on their own ego or teaching by the book to actually be useful, all but Sikowitz. He was wildly irritating and probably insane but he was also nice and had her sense of humor.

He didn’t care about what others wanted him to teach the class and instead showed up everyday with passion for improvisation and a strong belief in his non-shrugging students. Sikowitz did whatever the hell he wanted to and deep down Jade was amazed by that.

“Apparently, the Waggafuffles' private jet... crashed. And so, now, Kevin needs a new musical group to perform at his son's birthday party. It’s just one performance and he’ll pay you $1,000 each.” Beck stepped closer to Jade and embraced her from behind, both hands intertwined over hers. He took pride in knowing that he was the only one she let that close to her.

  
“A thousand?” Jade couldn’t even imagine what to do with that money. Maybe save it for when she could move out of her parents’ house. “Shall I tell my friend you're all in? I'll set up the party here at school in the black box theater. You can perform on stage after the kids have their cake.”

The gang had agreed on meeting up at Tori’s place after school to write a song for the performance. But writing a song for four-year-olds turned out to be harder than expected. Jade was the only one that voted for Robbie’s “Broken Glass” (besides Robbie) and was therefore outvoted by the other four. The final decision was André’s “Favorite Foods”.

  
In a quiet moment when Tori and André worked on the lyrics and Cat was flirting with Robbie/ planning costumes, Jade pulled Beck outside to talk to him in private.  
He had crossed his arms in front of his chest and she glanced over his posture before speaking up.

“So… What do you think of the song?” “It’s okay I guess.” There was an awkward pause before she chose to be as direct as possible. “If you don’t feel comfortable with this we can always suggest something different or sign off completely, you know, that right?”

  
Beck was not in the mood to be comforted so he shot a question right back at her. “Why wouldn’t I be okay with the song choice? It’s a kids song it’s supposed to suck.” “Beck.”  
She carefully moved his chin up with her index finger. “Please.”

  
He looked at her worried expression and his softened. “I don’t have a problem with doing a food song and dressing up as a hotdog if that’s what you mean.” “Are you sure?” “Yeah.” Beck took her and interlaced their fingers.

* * *

**January 20th, 2011**

On Thursday, Tori, André and Cat were chatting about their shared love for Chinese food when they met a very preoccupied Beck.

“Hey, Beck! After school, we’re going to this insane Chinese restaurant I found right up the street. Wanna come?” “Maybe, if I can find Jade. I don't know where she is. She blew off her last two classes.” “She's still mad?”

  
For this month’s theatre project, Jade had written her own play. In just one week, she had stayed up every night to plan the scenes for her first play, and now the teachers at the department conference had decided not to put on “Well Wishes”, because it was too “weird and disturbing”.

Besides the fact that she was convinced that there should be freedom of artistic expression at a creative arts high school, Beck knew that a part of her was also hurt.

She hadn’t let him read the whole script, but the general concept of a girl falling down somewhere, dying, isolated from the world and having her father arrive too late to save her really didn’t take a psych degree to interpret.

  
Jade had fallen down a black hole a while ago, and while she had a great boyfriend and great friends, it didn’t mean that there weren’t moments where she felt like she was at the bottom of a well again. Alone, scared, without any hope of ever seeing daylight again.

When the school had rejected her play, they had rejected the very idea of her too. Someone might as well have yelled “we don’t want you here” into her face. At Hollywood Arts, there was apparently no space for damaged people. Because of this, Beck wouldn’t have been surprised if she would have quit the school once and for all. 

  
But she didn’t. She was letting out her anger and sadness on a trash can from the janitor’s closet, and when Beck found her, he couldn’t help but feel proud. Proud that she had chosen not to direct those feelings towards herself. It made him realize how incredibly far she had come in the past year.

* * *

**March 4th, 2011**

  
“Okay, if you had to give up the Internet or one of your feet…” “Foot.” “Foot.” “Foot.” Beck thought about the scenario before ultimately choosing the same. “See ya, foot.”

  
The gang minus Robbie hat Screenwriting together, and today’s lesson was taking place in the auditorium. They had all chosen seats close to each other; Jade’s legs were stretched out over Beck’s, secured by his hand on her upper thigh.

  
Her hand in return was on his arm and the other one on his shoulder. She was often to be found curled up in Beck, and at this point nobody in the group really paid attention to it anymore.

  
“Really? You all give up a foot to keep the Internet?” Beck frowned. “Totally.” “Wouldn't you? You love the Internet.” “I know, but my foot is a part of my body. And the Internet is... yeah, bye foot.”

  
While the others continued to play Would You Rather, Beck and Jade shared a small moment by themselves. His gaze went to her lips for a quick second and she smiled, encouraging him to kiss her, but they were interrupted by their teacher coming in.

  
“All right, future superstars, take your seats, because at this point in your lives, I am in charge of you.”

The lesson turned out to be one of the very few times a teacher of theirs had advertised that the lesson was “full of excitement” and it turned out to be true. Because Dale Squires was going to be helping them shoot a short film together.

  
As always, the setting they chose was Tori’s house, but after the crew members wrecked it, Jade wasn’t so jealous of that anymore. The script came from Beck’s one act play “Realities” about a love story in three different versions. Jade almost begged the class to let her play the killer, so the female lead Monica went to Cat instead. Tori was helping on set and Beck, obviously, played the male lead.

The ending Beck wrote featured a kiss. For the stage production of “Realities”, the main characters had been exchange-students, so this was the first time that he was supposed to do this scene.

And weirdly, Jade was okay with it. Tori was quick to point out the hypocrisy of Jade always giving her hell for those scenes but letting Cat do it without any repercussions, but Beck shut her down.

  
Because Cat was, admittedly, her friend. Her best friend. But it was more than that: Beck was more like a brother to Cat than a love interest, everyone knew that. He was protective of all the people in the group, especially the girls, but while Jade was his girlfriend, André his best friend, Tori and Robbie normal friends and Trina- well, mostly annoying, Cat was more like a sister to him.

Maybe it was also just a little bit because Jade was growing up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi guys!  
> After a break I am back. Now to the details:  
> I really wanted the line "Now go get your boobs in that hamburger" to happen but there was no actual scene that could have taken place beforehand, so I am blessing you with it now. I thought that there was a really sweet Jandré moment as well when Jade made Rex shut up about the contract thing in the Diddly Bops (?) ep. The timeline is btw way tighter than it appeared; episodes basically happen days after each other. Have fun with that lmao.
> 
> I was also playing with the idea of having them see therapists but since I have never been to one this might be too hard to accurately portray, even with research. I shortend some of the canon dialog from the eps I used, e.g the blooper of Victoria tripping at the beginning of Wok Star because even though I get the intention behind it, it simply does not fit the show. 
> 
> For next time, there will be the "IParty With Victorious" special (Still trying to find the extended version somewher, help is much appreciated),"Beck Falls For Tori", "Ice Cream For Ke$ha", "Locked Up" and "Helen Back Again", also "Sleepover at Sikowitz's" for sure, because it is iconic.  
> Also: I just watched Janiac Jr's analysis off Robbie (Youtube) and I was wondering it I should mention what his friends trink about him/ The way he uses Rex.
> 
> Btw: The André&Jade scene at the beginning was supposed to be a friendship moment because I think that they are highly underrated. I will however go more into detail about a potential relationship in Chapter 13, during "Jade gets crushed", one of my all time favorite episodes. 
> 
> Also I just realized that the chapter counter was on 11 out of 12 chapters, this is obviously stupid because I cannot just fit 3 seasons into one chapter. This fix was originally supposed to be 8 chapters long, I changed that multiple times, now it is probably going to be 15 chapters long.
> 
> Title from: Donna (Suits)
> 
> That is it for this time, enjoy!  
> (Comments are highly appreciated because they motivate me to keep going and they are the literal only way to see if people read the newest chapter since the kudos are for the whole work. So I have no idea if anyone read the update. Pls comment.  
> Bye^^


	12. I will ~kick~ you

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sleepover at Sikowitz’s, IParty with Victorious (Extended Version, yay!)

_Front porch and one more kiss, it doesn't make sense to anybody else  
Who cares if you're all I think about,_

**March 18 rd, 2011**

In using what could be described as the laziest psychological trick ever, Sikowitz had convinced the squad to have a method acting sleepover at his house- A location Jade was overly excited to visit.

They were supposed to show up at 7PM, which was why Beck rang the doorbell at Jade’s place fifteen minutes earlier. He had hurried himself to be on time, mostly because Jade had thrown snarky comments at him for being late in the past, and he didn’t want to give her the satisfaction.

He expected his girlfriend to open the door, dressed as an innocent farm girl from Alabama. Instead, he was greeted by a five-year-old boy. “Are you Beck? You’re dressed funny.”

He was wearing a tuxedo. Courtesy of Robbie.

Then it occurred to Beck that he had never actually met Jade’s family, even though he had known her for almost three years now. He had caught a glimpse of her step-mom when he had picked her up once, but other than that, he only knew what she had told him about them:

Her father was an accountant that had married Jade’s elementary school teacher, Evelyn, when Jade was eight, they had a son together that should be about five now; Jade’s mother had emigrated to Australia when she was little. At some point his girlfriend had also mentioned that she had traveled Europe, where she had picked up a bunch of spiritual teachings. Unfortunately, she had also picked up Jade’s stepdad, but Jade hadn’t mentioned him in a while. He assumed that the guy wasn’t in their lives anymore.

Beck nodded. “And you are Milo?” He had hesitated with the name because he didn’t want to screw this up within the first minutes, but the boy just nodded. When he didn’t do anything but scan Beck, he decided to add up the previous question with “So… Could you call Jade?”

“She isn’t here yet.” Beck furrowed his brows in confusion. He let out a nervous laugh and tilted his head. “What do you mean she isn’t here yet? I’m supposed to pick her up.” There was no way Jade had forgotten about the exercise, and besides, what kind of Friday night plans did she have that she hadn’t thought to mention beforehand?

“She is at her mom’s place.” Oh. “She told me to tell you that she’ll be here at 6:35.” “That was ten minutes ago.” “So? Maybe she’s late. She wanted to take the bus back.” Beck shook his head. It wasn’t like Jade to be late and she hated taking the bus. Beck had taken a step forward, so that he was standing on one side of the doorway and Milo was leaning against the other.

“Dad doesn’t want her to go.” Beck looked at Jade’s brother again, and the little boy looked like he had just told him the biggest secret he knew. “She told me to lie to him. Dad can’t see you here because he thinks that she is already with you.” “Why does Jade want you to lie to your dad?”

“Because he doesn’t like her mother’s boyfriend, I think. The one from Europe.” Beck’s face fell. This was bad. Very, very bad. He tried to level his voice so he wouldn’t alarm Milo. “How long have her mom and that boyfriend been together?” “Since she came back from Portugal.” So it _was_ the same one that had hit her. And now Jade was with him and her mom. The same mom that had already turned a blind eye at her daughter’s abuse. And she was late.

Beck’s thoughts were spinning and he gripped Milo’s shoulders. “Okay Milo this is really important: Do you know...” He trailed off when he saw Milo wordlessly point out something on the street. He turned to see what he wanted to show him and saw Jade in the driveway. He let go of Milo’s shoulders and jogged towards Jade.

“Sorry I’m late.” His first instinct was to hug her or ask if she was okay, tell her to never, ever go to that place again. But Milo could have still been watching and it was unfair to force Jade to explain the whole situation to her stepbrother, so he came to stop a few inches in front of her. She didn’t look like she was in the mood to talk, but he couldn’t make out any injuries on her skin either, so he just got into his car with her and started wordlessly driving to Sikowitz’s place.

He made it through the first five minutes of the drive without mentioning the encounter with Milo, but then he couldn’t take it anymore. “So, I was talking to Milo back there…” He heard her moving around in her seat, clearly uncomfortable with the idea of having this conversation. She knew that tone. “What did he say?” It was supposed to sound confident, maybe a little rebellios. But there was no confidence, and the way she said it sounded like an empty threat. On any other given day, Beck would have played this game with her. The one where she pretended that he was weird for even bringing something like this up. The one where she hoped he would give up before she had to tell him all the things that she’d rather keep hidden in the back of her mind forever. As if he would give up the questioning if she just annoyed him enough. He never did anyways.

Today he wasn’t in the mood for games since they simply didn’t have the time.

“You know what he said.”

His statement was followed by silence, until Jade accepted the defeat. Her gaze was fixated on her lap and she was anxiously pulling on her fingertips. Anything that did not involve looking at him was good. “Mom reached out to me last week. She wants us to do more stuff together and it pisses dad off so I thought I might as well spend some time with her.”

There it was. The only reason Jade would do something that was clearly so dangerous and stupid: Because it pissed her dad off. Jade had reconnected with her dad’s new family a while ago but she still seemed to do everything possible to make his life miserable. To the extent of Beck’s knowledge her father wasn’t necessarily a bad person, but he hadn’t met him and he knew that the two still weren’t close. “What about your step-dad though?”

She shook her head. "Jade?" She looked at him. Light eyes meet dark ones. "You know you can tell me. I know you had your reasons." Beck had been able to explain it to himself with the thought that her mother’s boyfriend might have just been around the house without Jade’s knowledge when she went to see her mom the first time, but that didn’t explain why she’d ever go back there after. She took a deep breath.

“He promised he’d change. I know I have a family and they’re great but sometimes I miss my mom.” Jade pulled a streak of her hair behind her ear. A while ago she wouldn’t have been able to say anything this honest or open to anyone, especially not without avoiding looking them in the eyes, yet now the sentence left her lips without any issues.

“Do you really think that he’s able to change?” Beck for sure didn’t. She shrugged. “At least he’s trying.” Beck was concerned to say the least, but Jade wasn’t stupid and he trusted her judgement. “I’m just worried he might hurt you and you won’t tell anyone again because you think you deserve it.”

He pretended to focus on the street ahead because he was still driving, but he was actually trying to ground himself. The last time Jade had been around her step-dad for a while hadn’t ended well, and he could still perfectly remember the dark bruise on his girlfriend’s face. Beck felt her hand on his right arm, and he could feel the cold of it all the way through his suit.

“Hey.” The soft tone of her voice made him finally turn around. “I’ve been clean for a while now. I don’t self-harm anymore. If he hurts me, I will tell you. I can take care of myself.”

He smiled. “I know.”

The rest of the ride they were happy; not picture-day-smile-happy, not let’s-pretend-you’re-joke-was-funny-happy, but I-could-drive-for-hours-on-end-with-you-happy.

They were the last to arrive at Sikowitz’s house, completely in character, and fortunately nobody asked why they were twenty minutes late.

Their favorite insane teacher tricked Robbie into breaking character by falling through his own window within the first five minutes of their late arrival, while Jade managed to stay Betty Sue Goldenhart even after Tori stuffed a handful of Raisin Bran into her face.

After all, she was a good actress.

At around ten, Cat left voluntarily to see a movie with Sikowitz’s nephew, and an hour later André’s grandmother forced him to drop out, so it was just Jade, Beck and Tori by 11:30. But then, Jade lost her guard. She had survived more than four hours playing a character that was the complete opposite of her, and so far, she hadn’t fallen for any of Sikowitz’s traps. _So far._

“Um, sweet farm girl... Would you mind... Getting that tray of quesadillas from the kitchen?” Jade West would have said _No_. She would have sneered at him and told him _Get that tray… what the hell am I? Your butler?_ But Betty Sue Goldenhart wasn’t anything like Jade, so she said what any innocent farmgirl from Alabama would say: “Why? I wouldn't mind at all.”

She moved to get the quesadillas out of the oven and- “Oh wait!” But it was already too late.

“That tray just came out of ...the oven.” She felt the heat slice open the skin on her hand. Jade wanted to scream, cry, maybe destroy something, but she couldn’t. Because all eyes were on her. It was middle school all over again.

“My goodness that tray was hot. Well, lookie there. My skin's startin' to blister. And I do believe that's the sweet smell of my burnin' flesh.” With deep breaths and frantic blinking, Jade tried to suppress the pain in the fastest way possible.

She knew that it wasn’t ideal; she had stopped cutting for this very reason: Physical pain allowed her to breathe. With cuts, it was like someone was finally releasing the air that had built up inside of her chest, wanting to get out. Pain was something she could transform into a road to the outside world for bottled up emotions she couldn’t express. Pain was dangerous for her. But Sikowitz couldn’t know that.

“Jade, perhaps I should drive you...” She wasn’t sure if Sikowitz had let her burn herself on purpose, if so then he was a more fucked up person than she had ever imagined. It didn’t matter now anyways, because she was determined to win this game. “Who’s Jade? My name is Betty-Sue Goldenhart, a happy farm girl who's experiencing extreme pain right now.” She let out a whimper like she was singing, and nobody was buying it.

“Jade!” Beck was the first to rush to her side, and Sikowitz’s concerned expression transformed into a bright smile. He mimicked the sound of a buzzer and pointed to Beck. “You broke character! You’re out!” “But she… You can’t possibly still want us to go on with that stupid challenge! She’s hurt!” But there was no mercy with their improv teacher.

“I’m sorry Beck you’re banished.” He sighed and turned to Jade one last time before leaving the house. If Jade wanted to win that desperately, he wasn’t stopping her. But he wasn’t very happy about it either.

She didn’t win in the end. But she didn’t accuse Tori of cheating either.

It wasn’t perfect, but it was slowly getting to a non-violent place.

* * *

**April 8 th, 2009**

“I know I’m right about this!” _Jade was ready to punch Tori Vega in the face._

“Oh yeah right. Like you were right about Catherine Obvious?” She basically spit the question in her face, eyebrows shooting up as high as they would go. This was The Fresh Prince Of Bel-Air, and Jade West was not about to give up.

Beck was, as always, not necessarily eager to get involved. “Is it cool if I walk away?” He motioned towards Cat, because he would rather hear about her brother’s latest felony than have to referee an argument between his girlfriend and his- normal friend.

“No.” She knew she was right and absolutely wanted his support on this. There was no way Beck was going to take Tori’s side, and she hadn’t won enough arguments with the other girl lately.

Tori opened her locker and turned to Jade while switching her textbooks. “The song goes: Chewin’ some meatballs outside of the school.”

She was about to explode. With all the strength she possessed, she curled her hands into fists and pressed out “No; It doesn’t!”

“Then how does it go?”

Beck combed his hair with one hand and sighed. He carefully folded his hands to emphasize his point. “It goes: Shooting some b-ball outside of the school.” He had given up on remaining impartial a long while ago, now he was just annoyed at Tori. Maybe even a little at Jade, because of her obsessive need to turn ever disagreement with Tori into a war.

The brunette seemed to consider their version and then shook her head. “It’s chewing some meatballs!”

“Who would be chewing meatballs outside of a school?” Good point.

“Hungry schoolchildren. Who happen to have meatballs. Tori looked at them with the expression of a person that had either just won a rap battle or a presidential debate, regardless, it made Jade’s blood boil.

Tori left. Apparently, she felt like there wasn’t need for a literal mic-drop. “It’s b-ball.” Beck stared into the air where Tori had previously stood, confused as ever. He wasn’t getting paid enough for these days. It was exhausting.

“I know what it is”, Jade shot back at him and walked away.

Beck felt the sudden need to bang his head into a wall.

_He should have just stayed in Canada  
_

* * *

**April 9 th, 2011**

It was quite typical.

“Did you find one?” _The biggest party of the summer, and all they wanted to do was hang out alone with each other._

“Yeah. Right out back, and it's huge.” Beck had wandered off to look for the thing she had reminded him off for the whole ride to Keenan Thompson’s house.

“What are you guys talking about?” He was ready for a mean comment from Jade, about how it was none of Tori’s business and how she absolutely couldn’t come with them, but Jade stood down on her own.

“A jacuzzi.” There was a hint of spite in her voice, yet it was not more than her usual amount of “Don’t mess with me” energy.

“Jade loves jacuzzies”, he added and saw a simple smile appear on her lips. Jade loved jacuzzies; and Beck knew that she loved jacuzzies just as much as she loved hearing that he had mentally written down this fact.

“Sometimes I pretend I've been captured by witches and they're using me to make human soup.” There it was. She said stuff that sounded like she was trying to disturb others, when actually it was just her being honest. His girlfriend was twisted as hell, but ever since their date at the Los Feliz Murder Mansion, her saw it more as an interest than a mask.

Beck liked dogs and drag racing (the one with cars, not the one with costumes), Jade liked drinking coffee and dead things. 

“I'm sure you'd be delicious.” Tori’s boyfriend Steven could have had something to do with Jade’s sudden (relative) politeness towards Tori, Beck thought. Since Tori wasn’t single anymore, she had no reason to have a constant eye on her friendship with Beck. Now that he had come to think of it, he noticed how much happier and friendlier Jade had been toward the squad as a whole since Tori and Steven got together.

“Yeah, I doubt it.” Steven obviously wasn’t a part of said squad. It made sense though. Jade still had her guard up with boys, especially the ones that were visibly stronger than her. Robbie was definitely not someone she had to worry about, Beck was in many ways the only person she trusted at all, but the one left was even harder to define. 

She wasn’t afraid of André, or at least she told Beck she wasn’t. The musician was allowed to hug her after performances, be alone in a room with and sit close to her, which meant that he enjoyed some level of her trust. Beck had never given their friendship much thought; to the extent of his knowledge André thought she was scary, but apparently Jade was more comfortable around him than he had originally thought.

Steven on the other hand was new, so he had to deal with Jade in her usual style.

The two of them headed to a lockable room to change, and soon arrived at the heated pool. But they were too late: A guy in his thirties was already sitting in the jacuzzi. He was looking strangely tense, and Jade could have sworn that she had seen him somewhere before.

They approached the water anyways, mutually agreeing that a jacuzzi with a stranger was better than no jacuzzi.

“Hey.” “Hi.” “Hey there.” Neither of them was thrilled to be in this situation, and to make things worse, the guy was looking at them like the purge was about to start.

“Cool if we join you?” “Oh, sure. Just me in here.” The guy moved to make space for the couple, all while anxiously looking around. Jade would have loved to yell “There’s no one else here” in his face, but she wasn’t really sure that would help.

“Beck”, her boyfriend introduced himself and waved at the stranger, who was currently awkwardly pulling his elbows closer to his chest, as if to keep them over the surface.

“Jade.” The man did not answer with his name, but made a strange noise in response.

Jade saw no point in waiting for him to leave so she tried to (as subtly as possible to her) convey that she wanted him to leave: “So you’re not gonna be in here long, are you? Because- “The girl was interrupted by a creature suddenly erupting from the depths of the jacuzzi, screaming, and jumping toward them. 

Water was splashing around all of them, and the other guy hastily swam to the other end of the pool. Jade was screaming in the highest octave known to mankind, and at a volume that made it possible for her deaf grandfather in Chicago to still hear her. Beck didn’t even move. He just let his head fall back against the corner of the jacuzzi. His eyes were closed. He just wanted to sleep.

Beck’s most common negative mood was either tired or annoyed, oftentimes opposite to Jade’s general mood consisting of anger or spite.

_He just wanted to relax in a hot tub with his girlfriend and no one else, was that too much to ask?_

“Well? Did I terrify you?” Beck silently shook his head and watched how the man and Jade both tried to calm their breath. Both of them had a hand pressed to their heart. Sikowitz was just as excited as always, and didn’t even seem to notice them.

_An hour later, Sikowitz was getting bored._

“Okay!”, he yelled and clapped his hand in Spencer’s (the man had recently regained his ability to speak and finally told them his name) face. The movement sent drops of chlorine flying right into Spencer’s eye, so he blinked and pulled his head back. The distance was too far for them to reach Jade as well; she flinched nevertheless.

She told herself it was because of the noise.

_It was not._

Sikowitz dove towards Spencer and threw an arm around him. “This will be. So. Much. Fun.”

Jade looked at Beck, her expression reading “Kill me now”, and Beck sighed.

Spencer wasn’t convinced either: “I don’t know how to play improv games.”

“Stop wallowing in your ignorance man, and prepare to be- “

He made a cutting motion through the air. “EDUCATED!”

_Still not sold._

Spencer was obviously offended: “Wallowing? I wasn’t-”

Sikowitz just shushed him and continued in his teaching. “The rules of the game: We all tell a story, one sentence at a time, around the jacuzzi, counterclockwise.” He was picking up his speed halfway through the explanation and was now almost as fast as he was while assigning people for his sleepover.

“First he” (He pointed out Beck), “Then she” (Jade to his right), “Then ignorant” (While tapping on Spencer’s chest). As always, he was addressing an invisible audience opposite of where they were sitting, and as always, he was getting way too much into innocent peoples’ personal space.

Spencer was getting ready to fight him on the choice of pronouns, but Beck interrupted him. “So it’s just a continuing story?”, he clarified. “Yes! But now: The rub.” Spencer let out a quiet “Oh god”, which made Jade question whether he had known Sikowitz for longer than she thought. Because “oh god”, was the way she felt most of the time around him.

“No one is allowed to use any word, that contains only four letters.”

“So, four letter words are off-limits?” She didn’t want to fail at this game like she did at the alphabet improvisation on Tori’s second day.

“Yes Jade. Thank you for regurgitating what I’ve already explained.” She stuck her tongue out a little, to show him how little she cared.

“Now: The penalty for using a word that contains only four letters is-” (He left a dramatic pause).

“You’re held underwater by the other three players for one full minute.”

_Oh hell no._

All three of them shook their heads vehemently and audibly shared their disagreement. It was a little concerning how on board their favorite teacher was with water-boarding them.

“Alright you baby bottles, the penalty is, uh, a vicious splashing.” He rolled his yes and mockingly sent a splash in Beck’s direction. “Is that too severe?” Jade shook her head. “Let’s play.” She said in her usual morbid tone.

Finally, Spencer had enough of the actor’s constant movement towards his body, so he threw a “Can you scooch over a little bit?” in his direction, just loud enough to drown out the sounds of the jacuzzi.

Sikowitz, offended as ever, ripped his long necklace from Spencer’s elbow and emphasized his swimming to the other end of the pool, as far away from the others as possible.

“Alright, I’ll begin the scene. “

For a second he pretended to hold a stirring wheel, then he pointed to himself and yelled “Go!”. With the brightest smile and both hands on his heart, he gasped: “Marsians, thank you for having me aboard, but I’ve never ridden on a space craft before!”

Spencer was silently mouthing words and counting the letters with his fingers, while Beck put an arm around Jade and smiled at her. A wave of nostalgia hit both of them; reminding them of the day he had asked her out in this very teacher’s class, in an improv game about aliens. 

_“Wouldn’t you agree that a space pirate as pretty as yourself shouldn’t fly around alone?”_

_“Are you implying that I can’t take care of myself?”_

_“Does that seem like something I would dare to say to a pirate?”_

_“Would you say it to any immortal being?”_

_“Would you?”_

_“Have you ever met an immortal being before?”_

_“Don’t you see the giant butterfly in front of you”_

_“How long have butterflies been count as immortal?_

_“Can you remember a time a butterfly died before your own eyes?”_

_She could actually, but he didn’t have to know that._

_“Where were you headed before we were discussing the fact that I have never seen a butterfly die? “_

_“Wasn’t it obvious that I went looking for you to ask you a question?”_

_“What question does one want to ask me?”_

_“Would you go out with me?”_

_“As a space pirate?”_

_“No”_

_“Beck! No is not a question. That means you lose. Take your seats, people!”_

_He didn’t know her, not really. If he knew her, he would not want to go out with her, no one would, she had told herself that day._

_But now he did know her, really. He knew her, and he still wanted to go out with her, and he wasn’t a hero for that._

_The two of them had come a long way, and today she knew that he had had the same concerns about her that day too._

_They both had their baggage, and she for one was certainly glad she had said yes to his invitation that November Friday._

(Spencer loses the game on his first try.)

(They all splash him.)

(They barely know him, and yet she feels like she spent the evening with some kind of family.)

(They walk back to the room with the stage after midnight, hands intertwined.)

(He gives her his shirt and tells her that he doesn’t want her to be cold.)

(She takes it, without rolling her eyes or throwing it back in his face.)

And then they’re both kinda seriously happy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am back! As always it took way too long and I am sorry, but I FOUND THE EXTENDED VERSION!  
> So yeah, the jacuzzi (which I can now spell) and lyric scene were not written by me.  
> I also had to transcribe the dialogue, which is fun considering that I am not a native english speaker and have no idea how words I do not know are spelled. Especially fun was "Precurtiutating" which was actually "Regurgitating".  
> The fun stuff.  
> (Comments are highly appreciated because they motivate me to keep going and they are the literal only way to see if people read the newest chapter since the kudos are for the whole work. So I have no idea if anyone read the update. Pls comment.)
> 
> Title from: Larry (The Boys In The Band)  
> I have to keep this short so see you next time, and please comment (as always psyched to here questions, feedback, and ideas).


	13. See you all in hell! *can't open the door*

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Beggin' on your knees, Ice Cream for Ke$ha and Tori Gets Stuck, also build up for my extended Jandré storyline.

_I've searched the world and I know now,_   
_It ain't right if you ain't lost your mind_

**April 11 th, 2011**

“Any dude _that_ hot and _that_ perfect has to be hiding something.”  
It was hard not to get offended by that.

Beck didn’t care that Jade thought Ryder Daniels was attractive, whatever, but it wasn’t like he was hiding anything, so at the very least he felt left out.

“So, I guess you think Beck's hiding something.” Apparently, André caught it too. 

“Oh, he was, until I found out.” She wouldn’t. Beck had known Jade for almost two years now, and he knew that she would never, _ever_ , reveal the thing he was hiding from the group. Also, he had never gotten the feeling that Jade had in any way felt betrayed or even deceived by his hidden eating disorder. He wasn’t perfect, but he sure as hell wasn’t hiding anything close to the amount of stuff Jade hadn’t told the squad yet.

“What was I hiding?” He chuckled nervously to overshadow how much he feared her answer.

She swung around to him, playful anger in her voice. “That you were born in Canada!

“It wasn't a secret.” He yelled after her, but she was already on her way to Sikowitz’s class.

He could sense the others rolling their eyes, but he smiled to himself. Even when they fought, publicly or privately, even when they hated each other’s guts more than anything in the world, there was this place neither of them would ever dare to go to.

Besides, it really hadn’t been a secret. He had a Canadian flag in his locker, which was literally transparent to show he had “nothing to hide” and also, he’d told her about his birthplace before they were even dating.

It wasn’t news to anyone that Beck Oliver was a Canadian, especially not to Jade West.

Maybe it was just the only thing she felt comfortable revealing to the others without his permission.

As always, (at least in her mind), Jade’s words rang true.

 _“Any dude that hot and that perfect has to be hiding something.”  
_ Oh and how much Ryder Daniels was hiding. Robbie had been the one to find out his secret, after talking to countless girls attending Hollywood Arts (just for Tori, _obviously_ ).

He was using her, just like he had used his ex-girlfriends, to get a better grade in their shared class. It was awful, for Tori, the other girls, possibly all of womankind, and yet Jade could not have been happier.

As always, she was trying to be empathetic and compassionate, but (as always) she was quick to remind Beck that there was no way to spell “empathetic” without “pathetic”, and that she had chosen to be neither one of those things a long time ago.

In a nutshell: She was having a great day.

“And then Robbie told us. We checked it out with some of the other girls that Ryder has gone out with. And it's true.”

André had staged an intervention in Tori’s living room/ kitchen/ the squad’s usual hangout place. Jade was standing next to Beck, drinking her last coffee for the day (“ _Promise”_ ) and did her best not to look too happy.

“So, he's just using me to get a good grade?”

She looked over to her boyfriend. He was looking at Tori.

_Jade had warned her about Ryder, hadn’t she? But the other girl just wouldn’t listen._

Bummer.

The others were all standing in silence, _being there for her_.

 _Why should she be there for Tori?_ For the girl that kissed her boyfriend right in front of her. Why should she comfort her when she had literally made Jade feel just as replaceable and betrayed on her second day?

She glanced over at Beck for the second time.

“You must feel pretty stupid right now.” Then she did it again, just to observe his reaction.

It was a game.

Everything was a game with her, but this, this was the most twisted and the most Jade typical game she’d ever played. She got pleasure out of humiliating Tori, getting revenge, proving to her that she wasn’t her friend and never would be. That Tori meant nothing to her.

What, just because Tori was nice to her once in a while, she had to be grateful? The few people Jade actually considered to be her friends had earned it. They were her friends because they got her, and they treated her like she was untouchable, but most of all they didn’t do it because they needed everyone to like them.

Beck respected her, and he wasn’t offended by her attitude because he knew that it gave her a feeling of control and distance between the outside world and herself.

André made her feel like she had dignity, he knew exactly who she was and that she was irreplaceable. He made her feel valued in a group that oftentimes treated her like an add on to Beck.

Cat wasn’t afraid of her, but had also never tried to control her or boss her around. Yes, her “cheer up- buttercup” attitude was annoying at times but she was always ready to hug Jade when she was crying and never speak of it again or respect her any less.

Robbie wasn’t her friend, but that was a mutual understanding. He didn’t bother to try and “bond” or some other shit.

Tori wasn’t her friend. She was almost tolerable, if only she’d stop trying to be nice to her. Jade was giving her a million hints, _don’t even try it_ , but even without that, messing with Tori was fun by itself.

Beck wasn’t having any of it. “Okay, that's a time-out.”

“No, I was just trying to... “

“Go sit on the steps.”

And she did. Pouting, shoulders hanging down.

Not only was that odd, it was also… making Tori think about stuff that she didn’t want to think about.

She turned to the rest of the group to get any kind of comment on what they had all just witnessed, but nobody else said anything.

Jade was just sipping her coffee from the steps, and not saying anything for the rest of the evening.

Part of Tori was thankful for not having to deal with her.

She didn’t bother to thank Beck, because he looked a little tired, which led her to believe that this probably wasn’t the first timeout. But Jade didn’t even seem to be offended. Tori had literally never seen Jade do anything as instructed- for anybody- without first saying something along the lines of “I do it because I want to, not because you told me to”.

And yet there she was, silently looking out the window.

She didn’t seem sad, or angry, and she and Beck kissed when they left together.

_How…?_

But then again, she didn’t _really_ want to know.

Maybe it was all a game to them. A warped, distorted game nobody else would ever be able to understand.

Maybe it was best not to ask too many questions. Like André, Cat, Robbie and even Rex.

_Because then again, she didn’t really want to know._

* * *

**April 20 th, 2011**

_"When I, Tori Vega, am 16 years old, I will be married to a handsome prince, and we shall live in a magic sugar castle. If not, I will be Trina's assistant and do whatever she says for a whole month.”  
  
_

Jade was in literal paradise.

Things with Beck were going great, she had been cast in the newest school production (as André’s love interest, but that didn’t matter), and to top it all off, Tori was stuck being her sister’s assistant for a whole month, because she signed some stupid contract when she was six.

She obviously enjoyed seeing Tori get bossed around too much to tell her that legally, that contract did not stand a chance. Tori was a people’s pleaser through and through, so it probably wouldn’t have mattered. She was too proud to tell Trina off, and she would never break a promise. Another reason why Jade was currently way ahead of her.

“Tori! Hey, answer my phone.” One of the few downsides to this pact was constantly having Trina around, even though Jade had already proposed abandoning the Vegas all together. Needless to say, she had been outvoted.

Tori let out a whining sound. “I don't wanna.”

“Hey, you're her assistant, so do what she says.” She was having way too much fun with this. 

“Thank you, Jade.” Trina took another step closer to her and her hand came to rest on Jade’s upper arm. 

“ _Never_ touch me.”

Beck grinned.

He obviously wasn’t happy that Jade was still having issues after what had happened at Karaoke Dokie, but he was pretty sure that she would have told Trina the same thing last year.

From his point of view, Jade had four types of “friends” (or rather acquaintances).

Those that were beneath her (Robbie, Trina), those she had to take care of (Cat), the ones she respected (André, Beck) and lastly the undecided (Tori).

Sometimes a part of him liked that she didn’t let anyone but him touch her. It made him feel special. In the beginning of her relationship, she had been the one to initiate the clinginess and slapped his hand away when he’d tried to pull her closer. Then she’d looked at him funny.

Now they communicated without words, getting closer at the same time, hands reaching for each other in sync, Beck’s hands moving to meet her legs half way while sitting down.

She was picky, but she had picked him.

And it made him happy.

* * *

**April 23 rd, 2011**

“K “

"A"

“K “

"A"

_How did they get here?_

Ever since Tori had arrived at Hollywood Arts, every week seemed to be about a new shenanigan cooked up by her (and her only). The last three months alone were enough material for one and a half books, Jade had decided. It really took away from her free time and meant that it was pretty much always Tori who chose what the group did on weekends and weekdays after school.

She secretly liked it though.

Because she enjoyed hanging out with the whole group and getting to do the craziest things, even though she would have never admitted it, least of all to Tori herself. Everyone who hadn’t realized this was being undeniably oblivious, because why else should she keep tagging along to those things?

This week’s adventure was emptying ice cream into buckets, which was less fun. André had gotten all of them hooked on participating in a nationwide game to find the letters of “Ke$ha” in a popular brand of ice cream to win a private Ke$ha concert. Tori was particularly interested since Trina had promised to let her out of the assistant’s job if she won.

Now Jade, Beck, André, Cat, Tori and Robbie were sitting in Tori’s living room, trying to find any of the middle letters to the word. 

“Okay, we're never gonna spell Ke$ha.” Beck sighed, even though he felt the same way on the inside. He wasn’t excited about spending his Saturday with this awfully repetitive task, and so far, they weren’t making any progress either.

“Why are there so many “Ks” and “As”?” Jade was this close to snapping again. “ _Who knows? Who cares?_ ”, she thought. This wasn’t getting them anywhere and it brought up bad stuff for her, personally.

“Ugh! I'm sick of this. Ice cream reminds me of my childhood.” It had been a good while since Jade had cared about what the other ones thought of her. If they weren’t ready to deal with her morbidness; the many ways in which she was broken, she didn’t want to hang out with them anyway.

Except she did.

She wanted to stay with them, for Beck, for herself (against Tori especially).

But it was probably only a matter of time before she said the one thing that made them leave. Not immediately, of course. But over time they would start to whisper about her at lunch before she and Beck got to the Asphalt Café. They would not invite her to stuff as much, leave her without a partner on school projects…

Cat and Robbie had their obvious downsides for the group too, obviously. But Robbie and Cat were nice and sweet and had no pride. Also, half the time Cat had no idea what was going on and Robbie was only kind to others because he had no self-esteem.

She wore most of her injuries covered up, both literally and metaphorically, leaving only the dark parts attached to her mind for others to see. Only Beck knew about the bruises, and the scars, and she wanted it to stay that way. At least they were fading.

She hated them. It was a part of her she didn’t want to see, and tried to keep hidden at all times. It was Los Angeles, it was warm but thanks to her gothic fashion and inability to sweat, nobody noticed her unusual preference for long sleeves.

“You didn't have a happy childhood?” Cat asked, looking worried for her, and it made Jade want to stab her. The redhead’s homelife wasn’t perfect either, and yet she constantly had that cheerful, optimistic and most of all innocent spirit that Jade lacked so much. She felt the sudden urge to show the girl a montage of dying puppies and wailing children, because how had Cat not gotten the memo that the world wasn’t a happy place?

“My favorite toy was a hammer. You finish the puzzle”, she spat back at her.

It was unfair that Cat wasn’t a dark person. Cat had no problem talking about the violent and dangerous things her brother had done, in fact, they were funny to her. Jade would give anything to have that kind of outlook on life. Maybe then she could stay.

After all, it was only a matter of time.

Only a matter of time until she mirrored the abuse she had faced and redirected it towards her friends, only a matter of time until she was too much for them, only a matter of time until they treated her like the monster she was and left her.

It was only a matter of time until even Beck would end them, feeling guilty, mentally broken from the time they’d spend together. She tried to compensate for her happy and warm squad with watching horror movies at night. They somehow balanced out her worldview and gave her a place to store all of the darkness. The more violent and disturbing the better. She wouldn’t feel right until she’d seen all the shadows and all the fucked-up things this world had to offer.

She wasn’t sure if monsters were born or made or if everyone was just secretly evil. Maybe Cat would have to readjust her world view someday, too.

She wasn’t even sure if that was a good thing.

It was only fair for Cat to suffer equally as much, but somehow Jade didn’t want that for Cat. Because Cat was her friend.

Jade loved her friends but she also hated them to their core; she wanted to protect and hurt them at the same time, because she was essentially a monster.

Obviously.

What other explanation was there for her behavior and her thoughts, other than that she was the purest kind of evil?

They’d find out about her soon enough, she thought.

_After all, it was only a matter of time._

* * *

**April 29 th , 2011**

“Let's... discuss... acting...” _8AM, Friday. Improv class with Sikowitz._

“What about acting?” _Tori apparently still thought she’d learn something here._ _Interesting._

“Oh, yes. Any questions?” _That was more like what she’d expected._

No student of Sikowitz’s had any idea how to even begin to answer that, so Sikowitz just moved on.

“Would anyone be interested in seeing the cast list for our little musical called “Steamboat Suzy”?” YES. Since Jade was already starring in another play, she was looking forward to being freed of most of her classes.

Hollywood Arts policy said that all students were encouraged to audition for plays and musicals and that the school would make time for rehearsal, even if it meant that a student would not be attending their regular classes or having to do projects for the ones they were missing; and Jade was currently drowning in homework. This was heaven on earth.

“I got the lead, right?” Everybody knew how badly she wanted this. Cat had verbally forfeited for the very reason of boosting her chances.

“Pardon?”

“I'm playing Suzy, right?” The first female captain of a steamboat. Titular character.

Sikowitz had chosen not to hold auditions, but Jade still had hope. He couldn’t possibly choose Tori for the sixth musical in a row.

“Did you get the lead?” Sikowitz let out a knowing laugh, and then suddenly dropped the sheet of paper and ran away.

Jade jumped from her seat and picked it up, only to rip it in half.

“I don't think she got it.” _She sure as hell didn’t._

“So, who's playing Suzy?” _As if she didn’t know_. If it wasn’t Jade, and it wasn’t Cat, then it was -

“Me.” Shocker. Who else would it be? One of the shruggers? As if.

“Yeah, her. That. She got the lead!” The whole class basically pulled their chair an inch closer to the back, away from Jade’s anger but Tori just stared at the two pieces of paper as if she had no clue what was going on or how this could have happened.

“Well, what part did you get?” Beck wasn’t here, he was on his regular trip to Canada, and while he was away, André had basically appointed himself to be her temporary school- boyfriend. Like a work husband, just different. It meant that he tried a little harder than usual to understand her and be there for her. He had never officially said it, but school-boyfriend was a thing in his mind. 

“I got cheated and humiliated.”

“All right, now chill down. Let's see. It says right here, "Jade West, understudy for the role of Suzy."”

She snapped her head around to look at him, and he could have sworn he saw literal flames burn in her eyes. Then she stormed away.

After a moment of silence, everybody went on with their business as usual. Tori was still shaking her head when André walked towards her. “Am I the only one that feels bad for Jade?” Tori looked at him skeptically.

“Maybe? I don’t know. It wasn’t like I bribed Sikowitz to get the part; he chose, and he happened to choose me. I’m not going to feel bad about that just because Jade is throwing a temper. Besides, do you really think she would have cared if it was the other way around?”

That was all.

Nobody went after her, so André did.

He found her in the janitor’s closet, like always.

Jade was playing around with her necklace, the one that matched Beck’s. She didn’t have to mention it, he knew she did it to feel closer to him. He’d come a long way since 9th grade and felt almost stupid for ever having thought Jade didn’t possess emotions.

“Hey.”

Her head went up, slowly. He could see that her cheeks were a little mascara stained, and it made his posture shrink down.

“Don’t embarrass yourself. We both know you shouldn’t be here.” At least she still had her Bitch Boss attitude.

André sighed and slid down the wall until his body came to rest right next to hers. “And why would you think that?” She let out a hoarse laugh. “Because Tori got the part. Yay”, she deadpanned, but the way she moved her face away from him gave her away.

“She’ll be fine without me.” “True. She has at least two other people to celebrate her right now, I forgot.”

“Nah. When Cat saw me leaving, she got up to but then went out the main door. I guess she thinks class is dismissed.” He laughed and even Jade made a quiet snorting noise.

“André?” “Yeah.” “Do you think Sikowitz made the right decision? Casting Tori?” He took time to think her question through, then he answered. “No.”

Since it wasn’t what she had expected, Jade turned back to face him again. “You’re just saying that.” He shook his head. “No, I’m not. The man rarely makes the right decision if you ask me. That hippie is a high school teacher for improvisation, and if you ask me, that’s all he ever does. He probably rolls a dice or looks at the class once and picks the first person he sees.”

Now he really made her laugh.

It was a broken laugh, like a rainbow after a rainstorm.

“That would explain why he’s always casting Tori. Because she always sits in the middle.”

“Exactly. Also, remember he thought _Trina_ was a great fit for Hollywood Arts, man. Don’t listen to a word he says. You know, what was that thing your character said in that summer play? Don’t depend on the opinions of stupid people?”

“Don’t take criticism from people you wouldn’t ever go to for advice.”

“That’s it. Would you seriously _ever_ take any advice _Sikowitz_ gives you?”

Jade rolled her eyes. “ _No_ …” “You see? This means nothing. I know you really wanted this but it’s not like you’re stupid. You’ll manage your workload. Even without the play.” She started to believe André. His arguments were good and if anyone in this school was underappreciated, it was him. Maybe he was right, and Sikowitz’s choice meant nothing. Maybe, she was really able to do it on her own.

“…And also do you really think it’s right to blame Tori of all people? The girl did nothing wrong.”

All of the sudden, the moment was gone. Her face fell, and Jade was back on her feet in no time.

“Oh, so now you’re back on her side, that’s new! It’s not like she’s already got sympathy from the whole school, no, she needs her second in command to make absolutely sure that EVERYBODY knows she did NOTHING wrong. Well, you know what? Go to hell, André!”

André violently shook his head and got up before she was even done talking. He wasn’t holding her back but his body was in front of the door so she couldn’t make the dramatic exit she had planned for. This way, she just awkwardly stood inches away from him, rubbing her arms to occupy her hands. The scars were itching under her sweater.

“Now hold up, what are you talking about? We both know that if it was the other way around, you would not have cared for Tori’s feelings either.”

“IF IT WAS THE OTHER WAY AROUND, I WOULDN’T HAVE HAD TO BECAUSE EVERYONE ELSE WOULD HAVE!”

André was puzzled. Jade hastily wiped her sleeve over her face.

Neither of them really knew what to say, until Jade followed up in a voice so quiet, he could barely hear it. “Every time something happens to her, everybody is there for her. When we fight, you’re all on her side. Every. Single. Time. Even if she’s wrong. Okay, sometimes Beck says something but- “

She cleared her throat because she could feel it closing up more and more with every word. Jade would have killed for a tissue right now. “Without Beck, there’s nobody left on my side.” She whispered. André wanted to jump in and disagree but it was obvious that she wasn’t finished, so he let her take a pause before she continued to explained.

“Tori, you, Cat, and Robbie are Beck's friends and he brings me along with him. Without him, I wouldn’t be here.” Thinking she was done, the musician tried to think of as many arguments as possible against that, tell her it wasn’t true, but she stopped him before he could let out a single word.

“Don’t even try to deny it. You’re better than that.”

He didn’t. Because suddenly, he got it. Jade was much meaner when her boyfriend wasn’t around. That wasn’t news, it was a fact; one that everyone was aware of, but it was for a different reason that he’d thought. They had all just assumed that Beck wasn’t there to level her down.

Yet that wasn’t it- He was the only one running after her in situations like this, the only one that didn’t treat her like a child throwing another hissy fit, the only one to _care_ enough to understand.

And now he felt terrible. He did the best he could, he hugged her (without any objections from her side), promised to do better and staged an intervention as soon as Beck had returned to the country. One for everyone else to realize they had to do better. Especially Tori. Maybe she wasn’t as innocent in this as he’d previously thought.

_Maybe there was always more than one side to the story._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello Hello Hello!  
> I have chosen to, again, split chapter 13 into two chapters, which means I now plan to end at chapter 17. After this fic, I would like to do one shots and fix it fics for all characters, maybe explore other relationship and friendship dynamics. We'll see. 
> 
> I am very sorry for everyone that knows Hamilton and heard Who Lives Who Dies Who Tells Your Story in his/her/their head during the Ice Cream vignette.  
> Also, fun fact: That bit was not at all supposed to be about Jade's self hatred! I had originally planed to talk about how other members of the squad see Jade and why they like her, but then I woke up yesterday and chose violence.  
> I am sorry. Again.  
> This is one of the only chaps I beta read before posting, so it is especially embarrassing if there are typos. 
> 
> I do not know if I want to have the others find out about Jade, btw.  
> My intention for this fic was always to distribute all trauma and baggage equally between Beck and Jade, which already did not work. It is just way easier for me to understand and write Jade, maybe because the show portrayed Beck as a satellite character.  
> I do not want to romanticize self harm in any way, and having all the other characters take care of Jade and give her way more attention after they find out about the cutting might have that effect. But I am torn about it, because I cannot have an LA girl wear long sleeves until graduation and scars would not heal and vanish months after. 
> 
> What do you guys think? 
> 
> This chapter was one of my favorites to write, which was something I noticed while writing it. My main motivation for this fic in general was to explore Beck+Jade, get better at (semi) organized writing, maybe make a few people laugh/smile and create a work that shows a more healthy side of what this relationship could have been. 
> 
> Thank you so much for all the feedback I have gotten, you guys are amazing. Thanks to the ones that wait for the updates and the new ones who read it all in one session, I do not know how you do that. 
> 
> I get super happy when I see that someone commented (kudo too, obviously) and i try to reply to everything and answer all possible questions. Without comments, I have literally no reference as to whether or not people liked the chapter if they already kudo'd.  
> I know I shouldn't care about what others think (Bird Scene, lmao)  
> But I low key do.  
> Pls comment!
> 
> Title from: Cairo (We Are The Tigers)  
> So please continue to give me feedback, ask questions, give suggestions, because it gives me so much motivation to stick with this fic.  
> Bye!


	14. Some girls were just meant to smile

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A lot of Angst, mostly Jade& André friendship that can be read into (wink), Her birthday, Prom Wrecker, A reveal some have been waiting for, and Locked Up! (Part one only)

_Yeah, I don't want easy, I want crazy  
You with me baby? Let's be crazy_

**May 2 nd, 2011**

Busy day.

It was tech week for the play that Jade and André were starring in, and the latest script changes took up all of Jade’s free time. She was basically nervous all the time, and the fact that Beck was going to be in Canada for three more days wasn’t making it any easier.

The premiere of the play was set the same day as her birthday, and Beck was not going to come back until 7 PM that very day. He’d tried to reason with his family, but Jade still wasn’t well liked over at the Oliver household, which meant that he didn’t stand a chance.

If anything, his parents would probably try to delay their arrival. And on top of all of that, Jade was preparing her own live performance for the Saturday after. In other words, Jade was living on caffeine, passion and anger.

Her (fake) love interest did not seem to have the same concerns.

“Okay, is André trying to swallow that girl?” It wasn’t news to her that André had a new girlfriend, Sherry something, but their PDA was a little too much for her taste. 

“No, I think they're just kissing.”

Jade had been planning on talking to Cat, but right now, this was a much-needed distraction from her responsibilities.

Suddenly, André made his way towards the girls. They all tried to quickly appear as innocent as possible. “What's up?” Tori slowly swung her hair back to show how incredibly relaxed she was and answered: “Just hanging, you know. “

Cat smiled. “We were not watching you kiss that girl.” Oh my god. Jade was trying her best not face palm, but she was unable to hold back an annoyed groan.

“It's all right. I hope you all enjoyed the show.” That sounded weird. Jade didn’t _like_ watching him make out with some random girl. But she was happy that he was happy. He deserved it.

Cat’s phone made a duck like noise, that Jade interpreted as a new message. “Oh, it's my brother.” _Right_. The reason she came here in the first place.

“Did he get me the stuff?” “Yeah. He says he got you the clown costume, the power drill and 12 gallons of blood.” She wanted to hug Cat so badly right now. There were few people in this world Jade was more comfortable around that Cat. Just one, if she was being honest.

Cat didn’t get her, but she also _didn’t mind_ not getting her. The redhead was used to creepy things from her brother. She wasn’t scared of blood or clowns anymore since, like, second grade.

“Wow. Where did he find 12 gallons of fake blood?”

“You wanted- fake blood? I'll go call my brother…“ With that, she left. Like a puppy someone had yelled at. Sometimes, she even managed to disturb Jade.

“So, should I ask why you want blood, a drill and a clown suit?” _She shouldn’t._ It was literally all she’d been talking about for the past week. Granted, Tori and Jade had spent about one lunch together in the past 7 days due to Jade’s full schedule, but it had definitely come up.

“It's for a live performance I'm doing.” “Ah. What's it about?” “A clown and a parachute. That doesn't open.“ She saw Tori’s eyebrows go up to her hairline and almost laughed. Scaring the brunette never got old. But André wasn’t as easily impressed.

“What's it called?” "Clowns don't bounce." He nodded. To her, that was a reasonable name.” They don't.”

Tori shook her head. “They don't do that.” She was still terrified, and Jade used the opportunity to lean over and whisper in her ear. “Come to the show and you'll see why.” Jade handed Tori the flyer for her performance, and, to her own surprise, the girl put it in her binder, as if she truly wanted to see it.

Ever since she had told André about her insecurities, Tori and him had been much more interested in her projects, ideas and thoughts in general. It was a little weird and awkwardly intrusive, but Jade was glad that André wasn’t as quick to take Tori’s side on issues as before.

* * *

**May 5 th, 2011**

Little hands were shaking her. In an act of blind intuition, Jade opened her eyes, just a little, and immediately regretted it deeply.

“Happy birthday to you!

Happy birthday to you!

Happy birthday dear Jadelyn,

Happy birthday to you!”

Ugh.

First of all, no one was allowed to call her Jadelyn. That was a horrible name.

Second of all, _no._

She was by no means a birthday person, and in return had no idea on what day her little half-brother half- pure evil had been born. Somewhere mid-year, she recalled.

She scoffed. “Yeah, okay, whatever.” Milo was used to her dismissive behavior. “We’re having pancakes.” In the middle of getting up, Jade froze. “Who made the pancakes?” “Why are you asking?” At least Milo had inherited the same level of sass as Jade. It almost made her smile. “Because dad can’t cook.” “Then you’re lucky. Evelyn made them.” She raised her eyebrow.

Jade and Milo didn’t talk a lot, mostly because she was at school from eight to five. After school, her first stop was usually Beck’s trailer, and she was spending almost half of the nights there. “Evelyn? Shouldn’t you call her mom?” Jade found it more comfortable to say “My parents” but if she was talking about Evelyn as an individual (which she rarely was) she usually went with “my step-mom”.

“Well, she is my mom but you always say Evelyn, right?” That was almost cute. She knew deep down that Milo had never done anything wrong, he just happened to have a chunk of bad DNA.

She hurried downstairs alongside with him to eat. Unfortunately, the pancakes were amazing. And Jade came to think that this made it even worse that they were made by Evelyn.

The presents were very “stereotypical teenage girl meets the color black”, and as always, more for whom her parents wanted her to be than who she actually was. The last present came from all three of them. As Jade ripped open the lime green packaging, she could recognize a thick folder.

“What is that?” Her dad smiled in a way that almost didn’t look forced, and Evelyn motioned for her to open it. Milo couldn’t wait and told her before she had the chance to fully open it.

“It’s the real script from that movie I’m not allowed to watch!”

“The…” And it was. The front page said “The Scissoring” And inside she found not only the script but also hastily scribbled notes in various hand writings. “It was being auctioned off on their website. I found it when I was looking for any merchandise I could get you, honey.” Evelyn was smiling too, but in a different way than her dad. Like she was so happy to have gotten Jade something she liked, that it was a gift to her as well.

Evelyn made it really freaking hard to hate her. Especially since she offered to give Jade a ride to school. And told her she was excited to see the play. She sucked. Obviously.

It was opening night, and the whole day consisted of Jade switching from her classes to rehearsal, and as always, everything seemed like a life-or-death situation. And Beck wasn’t there.

Cat and Tori visited her at lunch break and Jade got to take her mind off of her scenes when she saw Tori’s sweater, which was so hideous, that she considered insulting it to be an act of patriotism.

The play was starting at 8 PM, and less than an hour before, she was as ready as she could possibly be. Her make-up was done, she was in costume and her hair was styled exactly as planned. Still, she felt like her world was about to fall apart.

She was stressed, her boyfriend aka comfort blanket in situations like this wasn’t there, and somehow her brain must have hallucinated as a panic symptom. Because when she looked out of the window in Sikowitz’s class room, which had been turned into craft services for the evening, she was sure that one of the students arriving to see the play was Ben.

_They were out to celebrate two days after the anniversary of their first kiss. Their real anniversary wasn’t until Thursday, but they wanted to take advantage of winning back Karaoke Doke. Sometime after nine, the two of them were sitting at the bar, and Beck had to go to the restrooms. She was too busy looking at her screen to see a guy, around twenty, approach their spot._

She pulled her head back quickly, as if the sight of him had burned her eyes. She shook her head.

No. _No._

Jade wanted to peak again, just to make sure it was him. Maybe it was just her brain projecting the fear or something. This was her night, and she was not about to have it ruined by-

“I’ve been looking for you everywhere!”

Jade shrieked. Her head flew around. The sudden motion made her loose balance and her body crashed into the whiteboard.

“Woah calm down.” André held his hands out to pull her back into a standing position, but she slapped his hands away. “Who the hell were you watching?”

Some streaks of her already curled hair were in her face, and she did her best to gracefully remove them while her hands were shaking. “Nobody.”

“You look like that lady from the Shining.” _Get him to leave. Pretend it’s nothing. You’re an actress for god’s sake._

But she didn’t really want him to leave. She didn’t want to be alone, not if he was coming in here. And she needed to know if this was going to be a serious problem.

“Can you look out the window really quick and tell me something?” He frowned. “Sure.”

“The brown car. First row in the parking lot. With the pattern on the tires. Do you see it?”

“Yeah, what about it?” “Is there a guy next to it?” “There is one our age that is getting something from the backseat.” “What does he look like?” André overstretched his neck to look at Jade and understand where this was going, but her face was expressionless. “I don’t know… White dude, brown hair, tall, glasses…” “Wait did you say glasses?” “Yes, but why do you need to…”

“Move.”

She almost elbowed him away from the window. When her eyes focused on the guy André was describing, she finally exhaled. It wasn’t him. No reason to freak out. Her mind was just playing tricks on her.

“Listen… Are you okay? Do you know him?”

He helped her pull her head back inside, and she let him. “I thought I did. But I don’t.” But that wasn’t it. As if on cue, she smelled fries and sweat and a few other things she didn’t recognize individually, but as a whole. Karaoke Dokie in November.

“Let’s just get back to the auditorium.” He wanted to ask a follow up question, anything that could solve whatever the hell was going on here, but Jade already hurried down the hall and he had no other choice but to follow her.

The auditorium was better. In some ways. It smelled different, like glue and paint and hairspray and desperation. Way better.

But it was crowded and loud and she heard about ten people call her name the moment she stepped into the room.

_“Hard day?”_

_“No, I’m good.”_

_“Good enough to accept a drink?”_

_“No thanks.”_

_“Come on. I’m offering you a free drink here!”_

_“I said no. I’m waiting for my boyfriend right now. Leave.”_

_He didn’t._

She felt tears coming up that she had to aggressively push back. If anyone here saw her crying, they would tell on her. Jade felt someone come up next to her and grab her forearm, not even hard just way too rapid, and she shrugged him off with as much power as she could conjure up in the moment.

“Don’t touch me.” It was André. Again. And he was looking at her like she was going insane. _Again._

His eyes looked her up and down, until he spoke again. “Let’s go somewhere private and talk, okay?”

She was going to say no, there was no way he’d pull her out of the room and stare at her and listen to her emotional backstory, she didn’t need his pity. She needed his respect. And coming with him now meant that he would always see her in that state.

But he didn’t look at her like she was crazy anymore. Now it was more of a cautiously worried type of thing. Which technically wasn’t better, but it made her realize who she was talking to.

André had no interest in snitching to Tori or humiliating her. She nodded and pulled her jacket from one of the chairs. “Let’s go up to the roof.”

Both of them made their way through the crown of cast and crew, trying to avoid anyone noticing them.

Up on the roof, Jade shrugged her jacket closer around her body. It wasn’t actually cold, but it made her feel grounded and safer.

“So, are you gonna tell me what that was all about or do I need to ask?” Jade started at her combat boots. “Do you remember that time that Beck and I stood you up at Karaoke Dokie?”

Whatever André hat expected, that wasn’t it.

“Uhm… Yeah.” The night she was talking about was six months ago, but to be fair, he’d been pretty pissed off about it.

Jade took a shaky breath and André buried his hands in the pockets of his jeans. “We didn’t leave because we forgot about you, we- “

She inhaled rapidly and exhaled just as fast. Jade was fiddling with her fingers and looking everywhere but him. “I- I wasn’t feeling well so we had to go home.”

Her voice was shaky and André felt the need to intervene. “I know Beck told me and I wasn’t mad about that I just wanted you guys to text me that’s all. Now what does any of this have to do with you being so upset?”

“I was getting to that!” She still sounded like her voice could break at any moment, but now there was anger behind her words as well. André held up his hands as a sign that he didn’t mean to interrupt her, but she had already stepped forward to the balcony, so he was out of her vision.

"The two of us were sitting at the bar, and Beck had to go to the restrooms. I was on my phone and then some guy started talking to me, he was kind of flirting with me? I don’t know. I didn’t buy into it. He was like twenty and I was just- You know annoyed. He offered me a drink and I told him to leave."

André tried not to think ahead and just listen to her narrative, but any story starting with “A twenty- something guy flirted with me while I was alone in a bar” was basically setting itself up for a bad ending, and if Jade’s behavior right now was anything to go by, this one was no exception.

He’d never seen Jade this scared or upset about anything. Angry- sure, sad- also yes but afraid-? Never.

“I told him I was sixteen because I thought he would back off and when he didn’t I wanted to leave but- “

_Standing up felt like someone was stabbing her head._

_Hands pushing her back down with way too much force to be considered gentle._

_“Relax. I wasn’t trying to fight with you. Just talk to me.”_

_“I already did. I told you to leave me alone.”_

She would have loved to end her story right there. To finish with “He touched me, and then he didn’t have hands anymore.” But that wasn’t the truth. It wasn’t really humiliating, she knew that, but why then did it feel like it was?

“He got a little too…” She cleared her throat and tried to think of an accurate word to describe it without going too much into detail. Talking about it was hard enough as it was and she wasn’t going to make it more difficult for herself by adding details that he didn’t need to know. “…Handsy.”

_Jade tried to remind herself to breathe._

_Their_ voices, the way _they_ had smelled and the way _they_ grinned at her were enough to make her want to crawl out of her skin.

“We were in a corner and I didn’t have room to elbow him or anything.”

André nodded. He understood why she wasn’t able to look at him, and decided to save his “Not your fault” speech for later. The last thing she needed right now was for him to tell her that she wasn’t a model assault victim. Nevertheless, he couldn’t help but feel a sting at the fact that she thought she had to explain why she didn’t leave.

“He kissed me and I felt like I couldn’t breathe.”

That was why she wanted to be outside. Now he got it. The school’s rooftop with no one else but them was the sharpest contrast to the crowded, stifling bar she could find in a hurry.

She was speaking louder than she had inside to overshadow the noises that the oncoming cars and their passengers were making down in the parking lot. It was rare for him to see the Asphalt Café drenched in sunset light.

_She just wanted it to stop._

_And then it did._

_Suddenly, the hand on her thigh was gone, as was the one restraining her._

And just like that, the moment was gone. The sun had gone down, and Jade wiped her words away with one motion of the bottom of her sleeve. “It doesn’t matter anyway because Beck got back from the bathroom and got him to leave.”

_That was a mild way to put it._

But André didn’t need to picture this scene as a 19th century tale of the maiden’s rescue by her Canadian boyfriend, that wasn’t part of the plan, so that was all he was going to hear from her.

“He punched him, didn’t he?”

She nodded quickly and stepped from one foot to the other.

“Yeah, he did”, she said as fast as she could.

Who cared if André knew about that part? She was just telling him what happened, and he had to draw his own conclusion. Besides, _what plan?_ None of this was following her original plan to take the memories of that night with her to her grave.

It was _André._

He was capable of processing that information on his own.

* * *

**May 7 th, 2011**

If Wednesday had taught André anything, it was that he didn’t cut Jade enough slack. Beck was back from Canada and the play had been fantastic. He was a little relieved that Jade had made it through.

He had insisted on her skipping opening night to take care of herself, but Jade, stubborn as she was, didn’t want that.

_But it was all fine._

It ended up being the right choice and the cast received standing ovations for their heartfelt performance. He didn’t really get a chance to talk to her after the play because Beck had taken her home.

He didn’t want to seem too clingy so he didn’t call or text her. Jade probably had no interest in reliving the whole thing once again. Yet, he still had about a million unanswered questions and he was internally kicking himself for not having started an actual conversation with her after she’d told him everything.

_But it was all fine._

Sure, hugging her seemed like the best thing to do in the moment (and maybe it was) but it was no long-term solution. And god, why couldn’t he have come up with anything meaningful to say to her? Something along the lines of “I’m sorry you had to go through that.” Or “I’m always there if you want to talk” (although she probably wouldn’t ever take him up on that offer, she had too much pride) or at least “Thanks for telling me.”

Nothing!

And to make matters even worse, they had to kiss on stage. Which was a weird situation considering what she had just told him, or the fact that her boyfriend, who also happened to be André’s best friend, was watching them.

_But it was all fine._

And Jade was already up to her next scheme anyways. After the play, she had gotten news that her performance was cancelled. Tori had set her mind on having a prom (or “prome”), and the only available time slot for it was May 7th. Available only because Jade had forgotten to reserve it. André was torn- On one hand, that shouldn’t matter. Tori was Jade’s friend (in a way) and she knew how important that was to her and how hard the girl had worked on this play.

On the other hand, Jade had forgotten to reserve the area and Tori was just trying to do something nice for all students. It was pretty safe to say that Hollywood Arts would enjoy the prom more than Jade’s short live performance.

So, he was trying to stay out of it.

When he first saw Jade that evening, he didn’t fail to notice that she and Tori were wearing incredibly similar hairstyles and dresses he was only able to separate because Tori’s was pink and Jade wore a blue one.

He didn’t get a chance to mention it though, because Sherry was all over him again. He was okay with the kissing; it was just slightly annoying that she didn’t seem to care about talking to him.

(He tried not to mention their situation to Jade though, just to make sure that she didn’t feel reminded of the last time she didn’t want to kiss someone that forced her to.)

It wasn’t like that with Sherry.

But his lips were getting numb from the constant making out. He reminded himself to talk to her about it later.

Jade went overboard, again, by cancelling the band, disturbing the students by playing a horror video, cutting off the power and, though he didn’t fully understand why, hiding a shrimp in Tori’s bra.

She didn’t try to physically harm her for ruining her performance, but that was pretty much the only thing she shied away from doing. Beck was watching a drag race with his uncle that night, which meant that Jade was a self-declared loose cannon.

Tori chased Jade into the hallway, took Jade's drink and licked all around the top of the can. Not a considerably more mature thing than what Jade had done, but oh well what did he expect. Jade continued to drink out of the can even though Tori licked the part she drank from.

Part of him understood why there was an ongoing slap page dedicated to whatever the hell their relationship was.

Tori wanted to call off her prome, and as much as André hated that Jade got her way with drastic measures, it was probably for the best. Especially after he found out that Jade had hired “Doug the Diaper guy” whose service was to “sing, dance, and pee his pants” (Cat thought it was hilarious). Even his date just wanted tonight to end.

But Tori had to have the last word, and called all the students together before they had a chance to leave.

“You guys, everybody, please wait. Before you all leave, I'd like to announce our prome king and queen, who you all voted for on The Slap.” André had firmly voted against having a royal couple’s poll because he was sure it would end up being another topic for Jade and Tori to butt heads about. But to his surprise, Jade had shown no interest in wearing the crown. 

“Okay. And Hollywood Arts' first ever prome queen is...”

It made sense though. Since Beck wasn’t here tonight, she would have to dance with some guy she barely knew, and knowing Jade, that was about the last thing she wanted for multiple reasons.

It was going to be Tori anyways, even though he secretly hoped that it was going to be Cat and Tug, just because they were so cute together. Generally, he didn’t really care who won as long as _he_ didn’t have to dance a first dance with Sherry.

“…Jade West.” _Huh?_

“What?” That didn’t make any sense. Jade had been spiteful to everyone for the entire evening, she had no date, and she sure as hell didn’t bully anyone into voting for her.

“That's right. Congratulations, Jade.” Was this Tori’s big plan to get back at her? Making her prom queen? Now that out of context had the same subtext as that fight in the hallway that he’d witnessed.

“No. Stop congratulating me. I'm not your stupid prome queen.” It made him laugh a little. Yes, they were a little immature at times, but as long as nobody got hurt, being prom (or even prome) queen wasn’t the worst thing Tori could have done to Jade, he thought.

“Don't touch me.” Hearing that phrase out of her mouth set an alarm off in André’s head.

_But everything was fine, right? Tori was just having fun. Jade was just grumpy that people treated her like a princess when that was the last thing she wanted. It wasn’t a big deal, right?_

_Like hell it wasn’t._

“And Hollywood arts' first ever prome king... Doug the diaper guy.” His face fell and he tried to push past Sherry, Cat, and everyone else in his way to Tori, but it was too late. People were cheering, Doug was celebrating himself, and apparently nobody else had a problem with the fact that Tori had just forced a barely 17-year-old to dance with a naked, grown-ass man.

“What? Are you kidding?” Doug swept Jade off her feet and carried her inside. 

_Oh hell no._

Even though he had to lift the extra weight, the performer was still faster than André. He finally got a hold of him in the hallways.

“Dude just drop her.”

“We gotta have a first dance? Aren’t those the rules?” André couldn’t believe the guy was actually arguing with him.

“Leave or I’ll get the prom supervisor and I bet he won’t be happy to see a naked adult running around our high school.”

It seemed like one dance wasn’t worth the trouble for Doug, because he and his boombox carrying friend took off without saying goodbye. As soon as Jade’s feet touched the ground, André was by her side, steadying her.

“I think I can stand on my own.” _Or not._

He let go of her but didn’t move. She didn’t seem to want to go anywhere either, so they just stood there, alone in the hallways of Hollywood Arts in shared silence.

That was until André finally had the courage to speak up.

“Are you… okay?”

“Yeah.” That would have been a hell of a lot more convincing if she had been able to look him in the eye. She knew that he didn’t buy it and sighed. “Can we just not talk about it?”

“Fine. Let’s talk about something else.” “Thank you.” But André wasn’t going to give up that easily.

“Last November I asked you what was wrong. You said it had nothing to do with Beck.”

She crossed her arms in front of her chest. This wasn’t a conversation she wanted to have, not ever, but especially not after she had failed to ruin Tori’s stupid prom and certainly not here, leaned against Beck’s locker, where literally anyone could catch them or eavesdrop on their conversation.

But most of all it was stupid. Because the answer to his question had already been established the last time they talked. He knew what had happened. “Yeah, I told you that two days ago. How bad is your memory dude?”

“I remember only one thing other than that conversation, and that was that you acted weird.”

“What are you talking about?” He was not going to blow his chance to talk to her again, he simply couldn’t. He hated to admit that it kept him up at night, and he just needed to know.

“I tried to hug you.” Her whole posture faltered and her tone became much more defensive when she spoke up again.

“I’m not a hug person, you know that."

“I do. But was that really all that was?” “Look. What do you want to hear? Are you really going to be mad at me for going to that place for what- like a split second? Do you need to be the victim in this so badly that you make me responsible for being scared?”

“So you were. Scared, I mean.” He knew that wasn’t how he was supposed to react, but he couldn’t help but think that was the most relevant part. He’d never seen Jade as someone who was afraid of anything, and he was just a little hurt that it had been him.

“Can you not make a big deal out of this you drama queen?” She had planned to make it sound like she was mocking him, but she bit her lip halfway through saying it. Because it was a big deal, and she knew it.

For him, that was enough of an answer. “André.”

She caught him before he could descend into a spiral of overthinking and even reached out to touch his arm. “I know it doesn’t sound like it but I swear it was just a reflex. If I’d really thought you were a person I couldn’t trust, do you think I would have voluntarily stayed in a room with you? Alone?”

When she saw that he was still processing her argument, she took the opportunity to continue talking.

“I know the whole thing is fucked up but I just needed a while to come to terms with everything that happened.” “I’m just thinking that we all gave you shit for constantly being stuck to Beck at that time. It kinda all makes sense now.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Well don’t you think you were a little more clingy than usual because the whole… you know, event happened when Beck was away for too long? I mean maybe Beck thought so too. I just remember that you two were basically attached at the hip in December. Like all of the sudden you were hanging out more.”

“Huh. Maybe. I never really thought about that.”

When neither of them knew what to say, Jade went to sit down on the stairs. A few streaks had fallen out off her hairdo when Doug had picked her up and her crown had fallen off earlier, and she finally had the time to readjust them.

“I’m sorry I ruined you guys’ prom.” André moved to sit down next to her.

“I’m sorry that Tori pulled that Diaper guy stunt.” She laughed. André had never noticed how bright she could smile. Her whole face looked different.

“What are _you_ staring at?” She scrutinized his face.

“Uhm- Nothing. Sorry.”

They chatted on the stairs for another five minutes before Tori came by to get André for their performance. She eyed up Jade and tried to throw an insult at her, but let’s get real: She wasn’t the best at improv trash talking. She went with something that involved the rhyme prome- going home, but it just made Jade laugh.

André tried to say something about the whole Doug situation, but Jade held him back. Tori didn’t have to know.

_That didn’t mean that André forgot about it though._

* * *

**July 1 st, 2011**

_“Cancún, a Mexican city on the Yucatán Peninsula bordering the Caribbean Sea, is known for its beaches, numerous resorts and nightlife.”_

_Cancún was where Jade and Beck were supposed to go with his aunt. Cancún was where Jade was going to get a second chance with Beck’s family. Cancún was basically the coolest thing she could think of, and it meant that she didn’t have to spend the first part of her summer vacation with Evelyn, Milo and her dad. Cancún was her place to relax, spend time with Beck, and make memories._

_In other words: Cancún was everything to her._

_But as it always happened to be with things that were everything to her, it never happened._

Tori had organized for the rest of the gang to go to Yerba, the home country of Hollywood Arts’ food truck owner Festus. Sikowitz had just agreed to coming along as their adult chaperone.

“So, who all's coming?”

“Okay. It's gonna be me, Andre, C...” Tori was counting the number of people on her fingers, when she heard voices coming from the hallway. 

“No. ““Come on.” The door was ripped open and revealed Beck, and Jade, whom he was dragging into the class room.

“No, I don't wanna ask her!” She pressed out while still struggling against his hold on her.

“Come on.” Beck was trying to get her into the center of the room in a combination of pushing and dragging her, but she was putting up a real fight. At least now she knew that nobody ever stood a chance at kidnapping Jade.

“No!” The girl was now putting her back into it and letting her whole body weight fall into the direction of the door.

“Okay! We'll both ask her.” Beck finally gave up and released Jade without letting her fully, as to not let her suddenly fall to the ground. When she was safely back on her feet, he turned to Tori.

“My aunt says we can't go to Cancún.”

“Aw, how come?” Tori’s voice, now extra sweet, was drenched in fake sadness. Everybody knew she couldn’t have been happier about their failed vacation plans. Because Jade had been bragging about Cancún for the past weeks, and Tori loved to have Jade depend on her.

“She found out I was bringing Jade. ““Ha.”

What she didn’t know was how much this had meant to Jade, and how much her self-esteem had plummeted after yet another one of Beck’s family members had turned his back on her. It had been a no brainer that he wasn’t going either. He didn’t really want to after his aunt had turned out to be that superficial, but also, he could have never done that to Jade.

Wherever they were spending their summer, it would probably include Jade wearing a bikini. Then everyone was going to see her scars and having a person that she’d never spoken to kick her out of a vacation because of them wasn’t exactly giving her confidence about showing them openly.

“So, we hear some of you guys are going to Yerba?” Maybe they could put this behind them and move on quickly, then everything would be fine.

“Yes. Yes, we are. Would you like to come to Yerba with us, Beck?” Okay. So, Tori didn’t turn out to be as humble as he thought. She was going to make Jade beg and he couldn’t stop her.

“Oh, that'd be great. Thanks.” Jade would have to get over the humiliation and she would have to get over it fast because he didn’t want to spend the entire vacation with Jade getting revenge on her. 

“Jade, do you have a question for me?” His girlfriend was suddenly overly interested in her shoes. Quickly, so that nobody else had a chance to prove that she’d ever said it, she mumbled:

“Can I come to Yerba?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I should currently be writing on other stuff, but who cares. I still cannot believe how high the current word count is ( I am horrible at organized writing so this is really something). I realize now as I am about to post this that this chapter barely involves Bade. Sorry!  
> I personally always wanted André and Jade to have more screen time as a relationship or friendship. I still don’t know how to handle the whole scar thing, and I feel like there should be a bigger focus on Beck next time.  
> This is the highest word count any chapter of mine ever had, so congrats to you for reading it all!
> 
> Title from: Elle Woods (Legally Blonde The Musical)
> 
> Please, please comment down below so I know that someone actually read this chapter (and to motivate me to write th enext one, life is chaos right now). 
> 
> Until next time^^


	15. It’s your choice to take this personally

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Special Edition: Locked Up!

_No, I don't want "good" and I don't want "good enough"_   
_I want "can't sleep, can't breathe without your love"_   
_Front porch and one more kiss, it doesn't make sense to anybody else_

**July 4 th, 2011**

a·vi·o·pho·bi·a

_The intense fear or dislike of flying._

_Around 25 million Americans suffer from aviophobia._

25 million Americans, and apparently, Jade was one of them.

It started after they went on the plane; Jade, Cat and Beck in the left row, Tori, André and Robbie in the middle one and Sikowitz on the right. They had intentionally booked a separate ticket for Trina, which meant that she was all the way at the back of the plane. And dear god, this posed a much-needed break after spending four hours with her at the airport.

Cat had insisted on taking the aisle seat to talk to the others, and Beck had wordlessly picked the middle seat, since he was always the mediator anyways. This left Jade with the window seat, a circumstance that she would later regret.

As soon as the plane started getting faster and finally lifting itself into the air, Jade couldn’t breathe. It was like the motion had sucked any remaining oxygen out of her lungs. Immediately, she tried to find Beck, her right hand hastily trying to grab onto his or somehow signal that everything felt so terrifyingly wrong.

He noticed and tried to talk her through it, but all she could do was stare out the window and witness in pure shock how everything beneath them got smaller and smaller. Suddenly, the seat belt that previously had appeared to fit just fine felt like it was crushing her, restraining her on the way to death. Jade wanted to rip open a window and jump into the periwinkle blue sky, no matter how stupid that plan may have sounded to a sane mind.

She wasn’t in control, she was in a metal can flown by some stranger, incredibly high up in the air, and she could already see the newspaper article in her mind: “Terrible plane crash on route California- Yerba”

Everything around her was a blur, or rather something she couldn’t afford to pay attention anymore, because she was dying. Faces, velvet red hair, brown eyes, Beck’s eyes.

Beck’s eyes.

He was calm, because he was always calm and he was talking to her. Jade wanted to understand, but only individual words, sentences ripped up to hell, could reach her brain.

Until she heard “Dr. Harold Perelson”.

“Wha- “

Beck’s eyes were now locked into hers with pulsating intensity, and he was staring at her like she was about to make a life-or-death decision. “On what day did he kill his family? You know that. I know you do. Tell me the date.”

Her breathing was still twice the speed of what would have been considered healthy, but at least she was occupied.

_On what day did he commit the murders?_

Such an easy question. “December 6th”

He nodded. “What year?”

“1959”, she spat out in between breaths.

“Good. Now what was his wife’s name?”

“Lil- Lillian.” She started to calm down, slowly, but at least she was able to focus again.

“Okay.” When he stopped talking, her gaze went out of the window again, and her breathing sped up. “Hey, Jade, look at me. Just me. We’re alone. Nothing else matters. Just look at me. I’m going to tell you how to breathe, okay? I’ll count.”

Beck counted to three and she took a deep breath, forcing her body to keep the air bottled up inside until Beck told her to exhale. He knew what he was doing. They were alone. Nothing- no one else mattered.

When she entered a normal rhythm of inhaling and exhaling again, Beck started rubbing her arm.

“It’s okay. I got you.”

* * *

**July 5 th, 2011**

After a nightmare flight of 16 hours with multiple stops along the way, they arrived at the airport. Since Jade had no standards for how those _should_ look, she didn’t understand why Beck was constantly pulling her closer to him.

They took a cab with blinds (never a good thing to have) all the way to the hotel, so they didn’t see much of the country. Their stay was an old fortress located on the peak of a hill, and Jade for one was glad to not have to carry her stuff all the way to the top. She entered the hotel right after Beck, and quickly stopped in her tracks when she saw the state it was in.

The interior design was primarily brown, and everything seemed older than the students themselves, maybe even their parents. A used, brown-ish couch in the middle of the room that might not endure another person sitting on it, pictures with dust on them and ripped up wall hangings painted a pretty clear picture on how developed this hotel really was.

The walls were made out of stone and it was unclear to Jade whether they had always been black or there had just been a fire at some point. A few plants were decorating the sides of the room, but even they seemed to have given up a long time ago. The whole entrance hall looked like an underground bunker that someone had tried to morph into a living room, no matter how much it had resisted.

The lamps were old, the carpet was old, even the guy sleeping in the corner seemed old, and there was garbage everywhere. At the more or less clearly discernable front desk, the guy who must have been the manager recognized them instantly. How could he not? Even in their baggy flight wear, they were sticking out like a sore thumb in this place.

Beck once again threw his arm around Jade and looked at her, like she was able to tell him how the hell they ended up in this place.

Upon noticing them, the man seemed even more excited than before. Had he not noticed what he was offering here? “Hello. Hello to you, buddies. Which is Tori Vega?”

At least it was first and foremost Tori’s problem. A small win. “Oh. That's me. Are you Festus' brother?”

“Yes, buddy. I am Sgrodis.” Why did he call everyone buddy?

In a strange way, he made Jade think of Milo.

“It's happy to meet you.” With that, he picked up Tori’s hand and put it on his face. He inhaled the smell, and Tori quickly pulled back her hand. She stared at him, but he stared right back, without offering any kind of explanation.

Tori was still frozen on the spot, but that didn’t prevent her from asking the most relevant question of them all: “Why?”

Cat came up to her to show her what she had found out on her pear pad.

“It's a Yerbanian custom. See? It says, _in Yerba, when people greet each other, they will often sniff each other's hands as a sign of friendship_." She giggled.

Jade was on the verge of laughing at her, and she was almost expecting Tori to go through with it. After all, Vega always needed people to like her.

But the girl just shook her head.

“Oh, that's okay.” “So how you all like the hotel?” Great start. First of all, it looked terrible. Second of all, it looked nothing like the picture online and third of all, Jade was slowly suspecting the guy in the corner to be dead. She didn’t think to mention it though.

Everyone started muttering careful criticism, not wanting to hurt Sgordis’s feelings but also needing him to understand how bad this was. Beck was just smiling at him in pure disbelief. “Well, um, uh...” Then Jade gave herself a push and said what was on everybody’s mind: “It's disgusting.”

Neither of them was particularly shocked she had said it, if anything, they had been waiting for someone to have the guts to speak the truth. Beck just squinted his eyes as if her bluntness was giving him a headache. He was used to it though.

Tori tried to sugar coat it a little more for the manager, but the core statement remained the same.

There was no way they were staying here. Scordis went into the other room for a moment and came back with a disheveled looking guy eating a sandwich.

“Hey, buddies, this is Kreploch. He will take your luggage.” The bellman looked like that was news to him too, and Tori tried to get her way with sweetness again. “That's nice. Hello. We're so happy to be in your country.”

Just as Kreploch was reaching for their bags, a high-pitched whistling sound cut through the air. The door was pushed open and more than five, armed military guards ran into the room shouting instructions in a foreign language. André tried to shield his head, Trina threw herself onto the floor and Kreploch was looking for a way to escape. It all happened so quickly that Cat ran against an old chair in the middle of the room.

Jade turned around to face Beck and lean against him, because she had literally no idea what else to do. Beck’s first instinct was to quickly push Jade behind Tori, Robbie and Cat, so that she would be as shielded from the threat as possible. She grabbed onto Beck like her life was depending on it. A disadvantage of being pushed behind Robbie was that she was unable to see anything that was happening. It appeared that the guards had been looking for the bellman, because he was now screaming his lungs out. “Please! Help! Let go, let go, let go! Please, please...” When Robbie turned to the side a little, Jade was able to see that Kreploch had grabbed Rex and was now trying to hold on to anything that could prevent the guards from taking him. 

He was in the air almost horizontally as four men pulled at his leg and his hands were fisted into Robbie’s shirt.

Upon everything, Beck wrapped his arms around her and held her tightly, protecting her from the officers. They all started yelling at each other, and Jade was screaming as well. Beck couldn’t make out what she said, but the look on her face was terrified. She was now leaning towards the officers, but Beck pulled her back so that she was closer to him.

Eventually, Kreploch had to give up and was carried away by the officers. They had the decency to close the door on their way out, but that was about it. Chairs were thrown on the ground, and the squad was left completely ruffled. Even Sgrodis looked out of his mind. Robbie, André and Trina had fallen on the floor at different points of time, yet neither of them was feeling quite ready to get back up. Beck was still holding her and trying to comfort her for a while by stroking her hair. He was the only one that hadn’t stopped breathing for a few minutes, so he was naturally also the only one basically unfazed by all of this.

Their room keys turned out to be screwdrivers, the indoor swimming pool was currently filled with ammunition, the white sand beach had been taken over by rebels, a foreign man was sleeping in their closet, a grenade was occupying the boys‘ toilet, and, at the source of all problems, Yerba was, as Tori phrased it, “sort of at war”.

* * *

**July 6 th, 2011 **

They had originally booked two rooms, one for the guys and one for the girls, but Robbie ended up sleeping in one double bed with Jade, Cat, Tori and Trina. One could barely call it a hotel room anyways, since most interior pieces were stitched together with duct tape, and the blanket was more of a big rug or a carpet for spice shipments. 

The girls were half out of their mind, as the war sounds outside the window hardly allowed any of them to sleep.

Except Jade.

Tori asked herself if she should find it concerning that Jade had zero problems sleeping within a literal war, especially since even Cat, who had told her numerous stories about how her brother had bit her at night, was wide awake.

Kreploch made a surprise cameo at around 4 AM, when he threw himself through the window and onto their bed. He was followed, once again, by multiple guards and dragged away within seconds, yet the event left the group almost in tears. The girls and Robbie decided to leave the room to talk to the front desk manager, all while Jade slept through a siren, a bomb explosion that made the lights flicker and felt like an earthquake, and even a lizard crawling onto her chest.

Meanwhile, the rest of the guys had woken up as well and were now all fighting with Sgrodis about going home. Jade joined them after Beck made a quick stop in their room to wake her up. André was sick, Robbie was frightened, and Sikowitz took no responsibility whatsoever, as always. It had no use, the group was obligated to stay and perform like they had agreed on, and Tori reminded herself never to talk to Festus ever again.

The first show they were forced to do was that evening, and Jade felt stupid in the sparkly outfits Cat had chosen, now that she was basically being held hostage by some weird country in the middle of a civil war. At least Tori had remembered to turn off Trina’s mic for the performance, and they were notified that the chancellor of Yerba, sort of the Yerbanian president, was going to make an appearance.

During the day, Beck continued to have an eye on Jade and step in whenever he felt it was necessary. Jade was fine, of course she was, but he knew that the whole war thing was secretly freaking her out more than she was showing. His main goal was to get both of them safely back to LA, but it felt wrong to force his girlfriend to perform a song like some entertainment zoo animal. She assured him that she was fine with it, that all of them were, it was just singing.

It still felt wrong.

So, he and Robbie as the main non-singers tried to do their best at getting them everything they needed for the show. The girls had choreographed and rehearsed the number all day while Beck, Robbie and Sikowitz had been trying their best to take care of André and finding a solution for their problem.

Neither of those things had gotten them anywhere they hadn’t been at the beginning of the day; André wasn’t doing better and they were still captives.

Pre show, Jade and Beck snuck outside for a quiet moment all by themselves. The darkness was almost comforting, and from here the war sounds were getting drowned out by the sound check. It was almost peaceful, Jade’s head softly lying on his shoulder, watching the medieval buildings and mountains far, far away. 

Beck didn’t feel as peaceful at the show, when Tori chose to underline the lyric “But I will give the best of me/ All I want is everything” with a powerful kick to the audience that sent her high heel shoe accidentally flying off and stabbing the chancellor in his good eye.

Everyone freaked out, the first whistles were being used to somehow control the chaos, and Beck jumped on his feet from his seat overwatching the equipment. He took a leap onto the stage, not the smartest move, but he didn’t want his friends to be alone in this situation.

Apparently, Jade and André didn’t have the same concerns, as they made a run for it. Both of them disappeared behind the curtain before the officers could even so much as reach the stage. At least she was safe.

He turned back to see officers climb the stage, looking very unfriendly.

This was going to be bad.

* * *

**July 7 th, 2011**

It turned out to be even worse than expected.

Tori was in prison, the chancellor was blind, and the legal system in Yerba was pretty bad. Tori’s lawyer was not all concerned with defending her, which was how the gang ended up visiting her with a big set of bars between them. André was doing worse, the American ambassadors were not doing enough, but Beck was mostly worrying about Tori.

She was terrified. He couldn’t even imagine what it must have felt like to be stuck in a strange country and then get arrested and sent to prison. Beck tried his best to help, but aside from cheering her up on their visits, there was not much he could do.

He also mentally took note that Trina wasn’t as horrible of a person as he had always thought, since she really felt for her sister.

Jade and him weren’t present at the trials, since they were trying to contact the parents. Tori’s parents were, as always, semi concerned about their daughters, Cat’s parents were out of town and not reachable by phone, nobody knew Robbie’s parents, Jade didn’t want to call hers.

It was a mess.

That evening, they all went to pay the chancellor another visit to demand that he should free Tori, so that they could just leave, as it was the only reasonable thing to do for both parties.

The office was small, maybe one third of Sikowitz’s classroom, and the walls were decorated with different paintings. The biggest to the chancellor’s right was a painting of himself saluting. He had a variety of plants that Beck doubted he could take care of himself, now that he was fully blind. There was an unlit chimney next to the man’s desk, as well as a red, patterned carpet. The chancellor was now wearing two eyepatches, and he was surrounded by armed military guards.

Sikowitz, feeling more like a responsible adult since Tori was an inmate, spoke up first.

“Chancellor, we're here to beseech you to let Tori Vega out of your filthy prison.” _Not his first choice of words, but oh well._

“No.” While Beck hadn’t expected the negotiations to be smooth sailing, he had anticipated them to go on for longer than two minutes. Jade just shrugged and turned to leave.

“Well, we tried.”

He caught her by her forearm and gently pulled her back. “Nu-uh.”

Beck didn’t understand her. Sure, Tori wasn’t her favorite human being, but he knew that there were moments where Jade cared about her. She didn’t really know how to show it and maybe she was still jealous of her, but at the end of the day, Jade didn’t really want Tori to get hurt, right?

So why was she not staying here, fighting for her friend (?).

Beck took the precaution of holding her by the arm and waist until he was sure she would stay with them by herself.

While Trina completely dropped the ball with her monologue about how Tori was a good person (just not as good as she was herself), Beck couldn’t help but notice that Jade avoided looking anyone in the eyes. In fact, she stared at her shoes for the entire thing.

Somehow, the gang managed to convince the chancellor of Yerba to let Tori out of prison and allow them to leave, all without a single word from Jade’s side. Robbie was laying on thick when he admired the man’s octopus, which may have swayed him to agree to their proposal.

But then he accidentally swept an ancient clock off of it’s place above the aquarium, and it fried the octopus. Perfectly in sync, Beck and Jade followed the exact same pattern of emotions and reactions afterwards, starting with confusion, going over to shock and then, finally, full blown panic.

Basically, Robbie had killed the octopus, and therefore gotten all of them thrown in prison.

**July 8 th, 2011**

Jade was still hazy on the details of the whole “minors go to prison” thing, or the fact that Robbie had been checked in on the girls’ side. Tori was pissed that now no one was able to help her get out; except perhaps Sikowitz, but he had proven himself to be mostly useless in situations where he had the chance to save himself without helping anyone else.

Even though Beck was only a fence away, Jade felt like she hadn’t seen him in years. They had mutually decided not to show that they were a couple publicly, so as not to endanger Jade if any of the male inmates were pissed at him. There was another couple split apart by the fence here, and they had witnessed the girl almost getting stoned by some guys because her boyfriend owed them something.

No thanks, they didn’t need to have that problem on top of everything else. Since André’s condition still wasn’t great, Jade worried about him even more. Beck was nice and calm, everyone liked him and nobody ever got mad since he had such a relaxed aura. André on the other hand got nervous within seconds and his anxious rambling had put them all in bad situations on multiple occasions.

She just hoped that he wouldn’t have a relapse from the vampire bat infection, because she was strongly doubting that Yerba had healthcare for prisoners.

The squad was doing their best, but they were all equally scared. If nobody was coming, they could rot in Yerba until the end of time.

* * *

**July 9 th, 2011**

After countless attempts of the other prisoners to stone Beck& André, they stopped coming outside. The guards didn’t care since they barely had any type of protocol, and this just meant that they had less trouble out on the yard.

Jade had prepared herself to protect Cat at all costs, but as it turned out, Cat was doing great all by herself. She was currently teaching the member of her new gang how to dance to her favorite pop song, and they had already accepted her as part of the pack.

Even Tori and Robbie had some kind of street cred for stabbing the chancellor’s eye and killing his octopus, respectively. The only one nobody feared, was Jade.

It made her want to smash something.

She was used to people being either afraid of her or envying her, or maybe both, but being seen as a submissive person by all the girls was new for her, and she hated it. All day long, women were teasing her, or threatening her, or even throwing stuff (mostly rocks and sticks) at her. It was even more humiliating when one of the others had to help her and intimidate her bully.

The woman that Jade had insulted back when she was visiting Tori from the other side was now very pleased to her that she was an inmate herself, because she was free to get revenge.

“So, do I still look big and stupid?” Jade perceived the woman as being twice her height, but she still wouldn’t give in now. She had her pride.

“All right. Listen, hot stuff. You better just turn yourself around and walk away from me because I'm gonna-” She was interrupted by a rough push, which made her fall to the floor. It was so dirty that dust particles were set free when her body hit the ground.

From here, the woman was even bigger, and she was now hovering above her. But Jade remained stubborn “I like it on the ground.” She turned around to pick up a piece of wood and came back over to them. She moved back a little to gain enough power with the wood to smack Jade with it, but Tori was quicker.

“Hey, hey. Hey, hey. Hey.” She grabbed the weapon midair and started debating with the lady in what the others assumed to be Yerbanian. Jade just stared at her, confused, and trying to guess how the hell Tori had picked up a language in less than three days. It didn’t matter, as long as the woman stopped trying to kill Jade.

“She's my friend.” Normally, Jade would have shut down any claims like that; countered them with insults or even threats of physical violence. But she was at a point where doing that would result in certain death, so she decided to make an exception.

“Yeah. We're super close.”

Carefully, the woman moved the wood under Jade’s chin, and pulled it up and forced her to look at her. “You are lucky, American.” Then she left. Tori pulled Jade back on her feet, and as soon as she was somewhat sure she could stand on her own, Jade ripped away her hand and wiped it on her orange jumpsuit.

“I didn't need your help.”” She would've eaten you.”

 _Who was she to deny that?_ Jade started biting her lip.

“She wouldn't have liked it”, she mumbled.

* * *

**July 10 th, 2011**

In the end, Sikowitz did wind up to be helpful after all.

He had disguised himself as a prison guard with the uniforms they were selling at the gift shop, and was now coming back to rescue the teens. Cat gave them the idea to put on a performance of MJ’s “I Want You Back” as the perfect opportunity to escape. It worked on multiple levels: First, the show had to be put on somewhere civilians could get in and out without trouble, second of all the guards were more set on protecting the chancellor’s remaining body parts than keeping together the prisoners and third of all, it was the perfect distractions.

Sikowitz had stolen an old pickup truck to get them over the border, and after the last verse of the song, the gang walked back through the curtain and then proceeded to run until they had reached their favorite teacher. By the time the people noticed that they had escaped and sirens started once again drowning out all other sounds, it was already too late.

When they got in the truck, Beck looked over in Jade's direction, making sure she was okay. “What a weird situation to be in”, he thought. A thing that he had noticed on their journey to and through Yerba, was that he couldn’t go without her.

The whole plane ride, Beck couldn’t stop looking at Jade and making sure that nothing was wrong with her. She was nervous, that was all, but a small part of him wasn’t sure she would not survive until they landed safely back in California. He couldn’t know that she was some place he couldn’t reach, and he sure as hell wasn’t able to ever let her get into a situation like this ever again.

None of them, actually. Something had changed, and he sensed that this feeling wasn’t going to go away anytime soon.

_than·a·to·pho·bi·a_

_The persistent and irrational fear of loved ones dying._

_Around 3 million Americans suffer from Thanatophobia._

3 million Americans, and apparently, Beck was one of them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Heyy!  
> I am sorry because I feel like it has been a while, but I have had to do a lot of work outside of the ff area, including a meme edit I made with a free app and then found out I could not upload it to YouTube (ugh), but I feel like my stuff right now is managable. 
> 
> As for this chapter, I hope you liked it, and I hope you all feel ready to face lots of Jandré next time, since this is where we’re headed. Am I the only one to always hear Sam’s mom say that? I loved the episode with Jane Lynch. Anyways, where were we?  
> Oh, Jandré right. As I said, "Jade Gets Crushed" is coming up and I loved that episode (mainly since I could relate because I too lowkey had a crush on Jade) and I plan to make it last a little longer than canon, as well as explore a couple of opportunities I see for them. 
> 
> Non- alcoholix champagne is disgusting by the way. Not that that matters now, since I completely drank it.  
> Sorry, I am really getting off track today. If any of you want to chat about Victorious or the fanfic or anything, u can leave your tumblr down below, because I love talking to people. 
> 
> Leading up to that, you obviously should comment! I love comments and they motivate me and make me want to write more because you guys are super nice and you have great ideas, and whether it’s emojis to paragraphs, I love to read it all.  
> Byeee
> 
> Title from: Rick (Rick and Morty)


	16. No Blood, no cookie

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Helen Back Again, Tori Tortures Teacher and the anticipated first half of Jade Gets Crushed

_Who cares if you're all I think about,  
I've searched the world and I know now_

**September 8 th 2011**

“All right! Tori and Jade, you two are going to play husband and wife.” _Perfect_.

They had to do this weirdly a lot now, with Sikowitz never missing an opportunity to pair them up for exercises. The whole thing was such a frequent phenomenon that even Jade only had two explanations for it: Either, Sikowitz was trying to train them to get along with each other and play nice so that they wouldn’t interrupt class with their fights all the time, or…

Or Beck was right, and Sikowitz was secretly shipping them. After all, was it really a coincidence that their tasks were always about acting out a relationship?

Tori sighed. “I'll be the wife.” “Yeah, no kidding”, Jade shot back at her. She was sprawled out across the chair with her arms crossed in front of her chest, and now had to regain a normal posture to stand up and do the scene. Great start for the day.

Meanwhile, Sikowitz had pulled Cat and her chair onto the stage and was now fiddling with some kind of baby bonnet and struggling to tie its ribbons under his student’s chin. When he was finally satisfied with his work, he turned her chair around to have her face the others. “Now, here's your brand new, synthetically red-headed baby.”

Cat attempted to speak up and clarify what she was supposed to do, but Sikowitz just stuffed a pacifier in her mouth. No talking Cat? Fine by Jade.

“Now, your dialogue should all be friendly and happy but your subtext is anger, so you must say your happy lines angrily. Action!”

Tori started the scene off: “Hey! I am so honking happy that we got married, and then had this cute little baby!” To get into character, Jade roughed up her posture and rubbed the space under her nose. She tried to lower her voice as much as possible until it was sounding like a low growl. “Ditto to that! I tell ya this: Nothing on this planet warms my cockles more than looking at that magical pile of baby right there!” To underline Jade’s point, Tori aggressively pointed at Cat, who in return was starting to feel left out.

She took the pacifier out of her mouth. “Goo!” “Aw, did ya hear that goo?” Jade was going to answer her but the door was opened without any previous knocking, so she knew something important was happening.

A middle-aged woman that radiated confidence, as well as a much smaller woman with a headset that looked like she wanted to dissolve into a puddle entered. “Excuse me. I hate to interrupt but I'm gonna do it anyway. Hello children.” Her tone got less friendly. “Sikowitz.”

Jade witnessed her teacher’s eyes getting smaller and smaller. “Helen.” Wow. These two really hated each other, huh? Helen talked for twenty minutes and all Jade remembered was that she had been an actress a while ago, Tori was a suck up and she was now going to be the new principal of Hollywood Arts, since Eickner was retiring. 

“…I'll see you all at the re-auditions.”

 _What_? “What do you mean re-auditions?” “To stay in this school. Next week, you gotta perform a scene, sing a song, do a dance, bang a drum, tickle a banjo... I don't care. Just show me some talent.”

There was no way she was serious. Hollywood Arts had a set audition process, one performance, and you’re either in or out. Everyone int this class was in, that was out of question.

Apparently, Cat had had the same thought too, and she tried to make her case. “Y’know... All of us already auditioned. That's how we got here.” Helen shook her head. “You auditioned for the old principal. Not for me.” She was going to kick people out of this school. For real. The privilege of being a junior was not having to worry about proving yourself. Those were the qualms of the freshmen, maybe even the sophomores, but by year 11, students were supposed to focus on studying, collecting experience and follow their creative interests. This was simply unfair.

* * *

**September 10 th, 2011**

The re-auditions were set to be on Monday, so that students had the weekend to prepare. It still wasn’t nearly enough. Beck and Jade were hanging out in the silver streak. The trailer was big enough to fit their gang with lots of extra space, yet the two of them were only taking up the long part of the couch. Who needed space when they had each other?

Jade was sitting with a notebook in her hand and Beck’s head on her lap. They had been trying to figure out what to do for the auditions for almost an hour, and Beck had already given up.

“How about we pick the same musical, you do a monologue from it and I sing a solo?” Beck was pulling on an orange pillow half stuck under Jade’s left thigh. “Like…” His girlfriend flipped open another page in said notebook and moved so hastily in the process that she almost poked her elbow into his face in the process. Beck groaned and reached out to pull her elbow away. “Sorry.”

He got it. Jade was nervous as hell because she felt like this could really threaten her place at the school, he got it because he felt the same way. A part of him had always believed that he was probably not a first choice in the program, and if this woman put a focus on singing, he was out.

“We could do Heathers. You know, I do Dead Girl Walking reprise and you could perform JD’s lines?” She leaned to the side and tilted her head to observe his reaction. Her eyes were filled with anxious hope, and he couldn’t bring himself to crush it. “Sure, sounds great.”

She frowned. “You hate it.” “No, I don’t.” Lying was a slippery slope in their relationship, and Beck knew that she could tell when he was bullshitting. “How about Bonnie & Clyde? You know- I could be Bonnie and you could be Clyde, right? Partners in crime?” “Totally.” “You’re lying again! What is wrong with you?” She was moving again, and it made his head bop up and down uncomfortably.

“Look- “Beck gently pulled the notebook out of her trembling hands and placed it on top of the stacked suitcases he used as a desk. He started playing with her hair to calm her down. “The truth is… I don’t really care what we perform at the re-auditions. Because I know that no matter what you do and no matter what I do, we’ll stay. We’ve been at HA for what, two years? You’re at the top of your class in so many subjects and I was the lead in eight productions in spring alone-

People want us here. They want you here, and they want me here. Am I 100% sure of my place all the time? No. But I know you’re really good, and I believe in you. So, if you think I’m really good and you believe in me, then what’s the worst that can happen?”

Jade relaxed, visibly, and took a deep breath that seemed to free her out of her panicked state.

“I think you are really good. And I do believe in you.” Beck smiled.

He got up so he could sit next to her, and she stretched out her legs over his immediately. “Okay, I have an idea, and hear me out first before you say anything. How about you do something completely different?”

He could see that she wasn’t really following him. “What do you mean? Like another genre? I told you I only want to do Rock or Showtunes and the second one shows of my acting abilities as well.”

Oh, he knew. Every time he wasn’t fast enough, Jade took over the radio in his car. That, or she played the songs from her playlist, which were always either songs from Broadway Cast Recordings or Rock. He wasn’t really sure if she knew any other songs.

“No, I mean like not singing.”

Jade sat up straight and took time to process his suggestion, and because Beck didn’t want it to come across as insulting, he kept talking. “I know singing is your back up, always, but you do lots of other stuff as well. You can act, you can direct and write stuff yourself, so why don’t you do one of those?”

He knew that he was right. Jade liked singing, it was fun, but not something she wanted to professionally like Cat, Tori and André.

_Jade loved singing with all her heart, but acting had always been her favorite performing arts. There was something about feeling a character’s emotions that made her feel alive. Like pretending to be someone else brought her closer to who she was in the process._

_Unfortunately, it was also the craft she felt most insecure about._

As a response, Jade let herself fall onto the grey fuzzy carpet. It was still full of sand from the time they had taken it to the beach, but at least it was soft. She rolled over and let out a whining sound that was muffled by the floor.

She said something else, but Beck couldn’t make out anything except “why”. “Jade.” He was trying hard not to laugh, because he knew that this was seriously bugging her, but the way she was laying on the floor just looked funny to him.

Like a magician was moving her, Jade flipped onto her back. He still couldn’t read her expression because her hair was all over her face. All he knew was that her arms were crossed, and that told him enough about her mood.

“Okay look. How about, you write a short film, like under two minutes, you direct it and play the lead. That might impress her.” A hand, pale as if it belonged to a corpse, shot up and pulled a couple of streaks out of Jade’s face and mouth. “Where am I gonna get my actors? The whole thing literally has to be done by Monday.”

“Well, who do you need?”

Jade thought about the question. If it was only going to be less than two minutes, than she didn’t need more than one other person. If she was going to write a short film, then it was going to be a horror film, that was out of the question.

“A little child.”

“Okay that might be hard to get.” Jade groaned and was about to roll around on his carpet again, before Beck stopped her. “But, but not impossible. How about I ask my neighbor?” “Too old. If they’re too old than the audience doesn’t feel for them anymore.”

 _Disturbing_. “Okay, that checks out, what about your brother?”

“Ugh. Fine.”

* * *

**September 12 th, 2011**

“And in that moment, he wasn't my big brother anymore. He was a part of me... That I had to let go of... forever.” Beck left a dramatic pause and then took a bow that was met with applause from the few people in the auditorium.

“Oh, that is powerful. Powerful. Excellent. And will you just look at that boy's hair? Look at his hair!”

So Beck was in. Of course he was. He was the best damn actor in the whole school, and as always, everyone was getting excited about his hair. Jade was sitting front row, clapping for him and cheering. He smiled at her and she smiled back. It was great.

“So, you wrote this movie yourself?” Helen had leaned over to Jade in the row behind her. “And directed it and starred in it.” Jade was completely focused on the screen projection. She’d been lucky: Her mom was getting a new bathtub and had let her use the old one for her film. Robbie had helped her with the camera and she had used the garage as the location.

Now she was watching the final version with Helen and her annoying assistant. The character was lying in the empty bathtub, wearing a purple dress and staring at the ceiling. Rose, as she had named her character, was shown holding a music box.

She was especially proud of the make-up and hair, Cat had done a fantastic job. Aside from the juggling clubs she had accidentally thrown at her while practicing for her own audition. Sure, Cat was wearing a helmet, but she had somehow forgotten to give Jade equal protection.

It was perfect.

**September 18 th, 2011**

She was late

Again.

1PM, The diner. Why the hell wasn’t she here?

Beck felt his palms get sweaty as he thought about all the reasons why she might not be here. Car accident. Robbery. Terminal illness. A new 9/11 ten years later in Los Angeles. Her step-dad.

 _Oh god_. Her step-dad.

He frantically tried to dial her number for the tenth time. He couldn’t just do nothing, right? Maybe Jade was hurt, or dead, or about to die. And he was just sitting in this stupid diner waiting for her. He should never have let his girlfriend out of his sight, if anything had happened to her it was his fault.

She didn’t pick up.

The diner was narrowing down on him, everything was right next to him, yet completely out of reach. A coke in front of him that made him want to puke and a million sounds. Everything was too fast and too loud and too much and he was never going to find her and even if he could she would already be dead and-

“Hey.” Just like that.

Jade slid in the opposite booth and picked up the menu, as usual.

Just that it wasn’t as usual. He almost slapped the menu from her hands as the rush of adrenaline hadn’t fully worn off yet. “Where have you been?” She looked at him funny. “I was at Cat’s place to rehearse the homework scene.” “You could have texted.” “Beck I’m ten minutes late. What are you, German?”

He didn’t laugh. “I called you like ten times.” Jade shook her head because she still didn’t know why he was so upset. At first, she thought he was kidding, but apparently, he was dead serious about this. “What the hell is up with you lately?”

“I- Nothing! You’re always late and you never call or text me back when you’re gone.” “We spend every hour of everyday together. Literally. When have 90% of the same classes, we eat lunch and spend afternoons together and then I sleep over at your place half the time. I’m literally almost never gone, so I don’t know what your problem is”, she deadpanned.

Beck opened his mouth to answer but Jade had picked the menu back up again, which meant that he had three options: Ripping the menu away from her for the second time which seemed childish, waiting until she was done which he sure as hell also wasn’t going to do, or talk to the mint green, laminated menu.

“I get that we spend a lot of time together but I’m worried about you when you’re out of my sight.”

She dropped the menu abruptly at this, and Beck knew that he was in trouble.

“Oh, so I’m a bad girlfriend because I don’t worry about how you are 24/7? Do you even realize this protectiveness isn’t cute, it’s controlling?”

_No, it wasn’t. Right? He was just worried about her well-being, he wanted her to be okay._

“Look. You know what? I feel like we might need some space. I’m leaving.” She got up and headed to the door. “Jade!” “Don’t worry I’ll text you”, she yelled while throwing open the doors for a grand exit.

* * *

**September 19 th, 2011**

J❤️: if u want to own someone u should get a puppy

She sent it and was satisfied. Her leg started bouncing up and down while she waited for Beck’s black pear phone to make a sound. It did.

“What? Really?” She nodded. She had meant every word as she’d written it. 

The two of them barely noticed Tori and André enter Sikowitz’s classroom. They were still fighting about yesterday, but that hadn’t prevented them from naturally taking the seats right next to each other.

“All right. Okay...”

Beck started aggressively typing while Jade crossed her arms in front of her chest and waited for his answer. Her phone beeped and she read his newest message.

Moron ❤️: If you wanted somene to yell at ypu should ge t a punching bag.

“What?! What?! What?!” Beck shrugged.

“Okay. You wanna go there?”

J❤️: how come u say I overreact when u freak over 10 minutes

Tori and André were still witnessing their debate in awe. “I wonder what they're text fighting about.” “Let's ask 'em. Hey you guys...”

As soon as André got too close to the couple, both of their heads shot up in synch and started spewing insults at the two of them.

“Stay out of this!” “Back off!” André shrugged. “I’d rather not get involved.”

Jade couldn’t have cared less about the lesson. Sikowitz had some anniversary, but what was more important was that he’d made them put away their phones. This way, the only way to effectively establish dominance in this fight was to shoot glares at him every time he so much as tried to move.

Beck didn’t care either. But when Sikowitz accidentally discovered that he wasn’t wearing underwear, he laughed and almost looked at Jade to see if she was laughing as well. He wanted to share moments like this. But she wasn’t even looking in his direction.

* * *

**September 23 rd, 2011**

J❤️: that excuse was almost as bad as the play u and m*redith were in

“What?” Beck was walking up the stairs at the theatre that Tori had basically abducted them to. She wanted to do something nice for Sikowitz or whatever, but it meant that he wasn’t able to make a case for himself for more than an hour because there were no phones allowed.

“…Uhm... sorry what?” Jade was already at their assigned seats and he hurried after her. 

“You read me.” He was now only inches away from her face and basically able to smell the perfume she was carrying in her black purse. She didn’t shy away from him.

They both sat down and Beck started texting, slower this time, while Jade opened up the playbill and relaxed in her chair.

They didn’t end up seeing a lot of the play.

* * *

**October 3 rd, 2011**

Advanced songwriting class.

Semester project.

Still no lyrics.

Due in three days.

Tori was unavailable to sing whatever the hell André was able to make up that afternoon because she had to study for her tech theatre exam and Cat was… well Cat. He wasn’t sure if he was ready to bet his grade for the semester on the redhead just yet.

He had a couple of other options but there was only one person that could get the song and sing it the way it felt to him.

Unfortunately, that person happened to be scary as hell, and, at times, violent.

André and Jade had been through some stuff, sure, but after their play and the whole prome thing, they had almost grown apart. Jade was back to being her terrifying self and André wasn’t sure if her newfound aggression could extend to him.

Beck went to visit him at the recording room inside Hollywood Arts while he was still setting up the technology, and André thought about how to explain his problem to him without insulting his girlfriend.

“Um, about Jade...” Beck had picked up a couple of Baoding balls and started moving them across his palm. At least he was chill now.

“Yeah?” “Look, don't take this the wrong way but...I dunno if she's the right girl to sing my song.”

He mentally gave himself a high five for coming up with the excuse. She wasn’t the right person. That was a style choice, and not even a personal one.

“Why not?”

“I dunno, just...She doesn’t really fit the theme of the song.” “I thought you didn’t even have lyrics yet.” Less of a question and more of an observation. Busted.

“Okay fine…She scares me.”

Beck almost dropped the balls as he doubled over laughing. “Jade scares you?”

He seemed seriously confused why. André was still wondering what parts of her Beck got to see that he didn’t even know existed. Sometimes she was serious and caring even towards him or the group, but those were rare moments that didn’t really convince him that she was a less creepy or scary person.

“She scares everybody.”

Beck had trouble holding in his laughter. “Are you- “

But his question was interrupted by Jade, who perfectly proved André’s point by bursting through the door, shouting, while pointing a por of scissors at the two of them.

“I am gonna kill him!” André made a whimpering sound, took two large steps back until he almost sat on the keyboard and tried to look as innocent as possible. He didn’t want to leave the room with a pair of scissors stuck in his eye.

To Beck it was more of a routine, as he gently took hold of her upper arms and tried to calm her down. “What happened?”

“SINJIN SAT ON MY NEW SCISSORS!” “Okay, okay calm down...”

I’M NOT GONNA CALM DOWN; THEY’RE BENT! THEY’VE LOST THEIR SIZZ!” She emphasized the last words by throwing the scissors against the wall, where they got stuck in one of the posters. André flinched again but Beck wasn’t really bothered. “Okay I gotta run if I want to make it. You kids have fun!” He gave Jade a kiss on the cheek on his way out that left her a little less angry and a little grumpier.

And just like that, they were alone.

André still didn’t have his lyrics, so he offered Jade a chair and started writing down stuff that was going through his head. He felt a little stupid for inviting her and even talking about her behind her back, just to not talk to her at all because he wasn’t even ready. But when he looked over to her, she was scrabbling stuff on a piece of paper.

“What are you doing?” She looked up, completely caught up in her work. “Just writing down stuff that might help you. Song-wise.” Wow. He wasn’t sure since when she was taking this seriously, but apparently it was important to her that they ended up with a great song.

The only problem was that he wrote from his own feelings and he didn’t have any right now. Well, he did have feelings, everybody did, just not for romantic feelings for anyone right now. He had stopped seeing Ceiko because she was a little boring, no dramatic ending, no heartbreak. He was almost sad about not being devastated about it. At least he would have had a theme for his song.

Which could be a reason for Jade to be here. She had Beck, which meant that he had access to a lot more feelings than him right now. How strange. The way she looked now, buried in lyrics ideas, dark hair with green and blue streaks falling into her face, feeling in silence, it was totally unfamiliar to him.

He knew Jade as moody, rebellious, distrustful and harsh. But that wasn’t her right now. She was different.

Authentic. Positive. Clever. Assertive.

Maybe they could actually get along.

* * *

**October 4 th, 2011**

Three hours later, he still didn’t have a single lyric. He had a couple of words or phrases about how much he loved his grandma and Hollywood Arts, but nothing with substance.

“You ever try this when you were a kid?” Jade ripped him out of his thoughts as she pulled on his wrist. “What…?” He didn’t fully take his hand away but he leaned back to determine what she had planned and if it involved him leaving this studio with or without his hand tonight.

“Just give me your hand, don't be a baby.” She was almost playfully reaching for his hand, and he rolled over to her. “Alright... I'm trusting you.” She laughed wholeheartedly. Also felt like a first.

“Yeah, yeah... big mistake... Make a fist?” He clenched the muscles in his hand and made a fist. She still had a tight but not uncomfortable hold on his wrist. “Okay...” Jade was massaging his fist with her right hand. He stared at them. She was wearing black nail polish, and he couldn’t remember if she always had or if it was a new thing.

“What are you -?” But she interrupted him. “Uhm. Talk less... And open your hand.” He did as he was told and she slapped his palm with hers. “Fist.” Then she started massaging again. André’s gaze went to the clock again. While he appreciated that she was distracting him from the task, he didn’t quite see how else this was going to help.

“You sure there's a point to this?”

“Yep... and here it comes... Open?” When he opened up his fist, Jade carefully touched the center of his palm with her index finger. Suddenly, his whole hand started tingling like crazy. 

“Oooh, it's all tingly!” She giggled at his childish voice. “See?”

André started clapping his hands. “Haha... do it again!”, he said in newborn procrastination spirit.

“No! You have to finish writing the chorus for your song!” _Why was this in any way important to her?_

“Eh, it’s after midnight. Let's just bail.” André felt a little guilty for making her come here in the first place since they didn’t end up recording anything. Tonight, was a bust.

“Uh uh!” She smiled and reached for the trail mix bowl she had made an hour ago. “You got a break, now finish writing the chorus.” She ate a raisin and teasingly grinned at him. She didn’t seem tired or annoyed like he had predicted; in fact, Jade really look as if she was enjoying this.

“I've been trying' to finish it for three hours.” When he was with Tori, that excuse usually worked almost instantly. They had worked on lots of projects, and she always told him to go to sleep when they were working late. 

“Wow. Great, now shut up and sing something.” But Jade wasn’t like Tori. She was pushy and bossy and wanted him to be better. André knew better than to argue with her. He rolled back towards the keyboard and started playing the first chords of his song while trying to think of something, anything really that could fit the tone.

“Uhm…” He looked over to Jade who didn’t even look like she was listening. She was hunched over and started writing stuff down. “Keep going”, she instructed as her brows furrowed.

So, André started singing whatever came to his mind:

_“I... I really wish that I could write the next line//_

_My favorite letter's J//_

_Tuna fish filet //_

_I'm gonna wash my dog with some blue shampoo//”_

Jade’s eyes went up as if to say _Are you kidding me_ , she tilted her head and nodded.

“All right... let me try something. Record me.” André pressed the record button and Jade put on the headphones. He started replaying the song as she tried her lyrics.

_“There is no upper hand I'm giving' you mine”_

As she was singing, something changed about the atmosphere in the room. André’s perspective shifted and he turned his attention away from the lyrics.

_“It doesn't have to end up wasting' your time”_

Jade was the most beautiful person he had ever seen.

_“There's things that I could say”_

The way she closed her eyes while singing, the way her hair was tucked behind the headphones, her lips, her voice,

Her _voice_.

Low, raspy but at the same time clear and exactly right.

_“But hear it my way, I want to let you know…”_

Her face was a little stressed because she was feeling the song so much but he felt more relaxed than he had ever been.

Everything froze and time stopped around them and nothing mattered but her.

_“…That it's all okay.”_

_Oh shit._

He knocked so hard he wasn’t sure if his knuckles were broken.

“André!” Tori opened the door, wearing her pj’s and boots. She looked half out of her mind, but he didn’t have time for her problems right now. “Did you get my text?”

“Yes... why do you think I'm standing here at three in the morning?” _Good point._ He would have gone to Beck in any other scenario, but for this particular situation there was nobody on the planet less suited to deal with this than Beck.

“I'm freaking out, Tori!” “All right, just come in, come in. What is wrong with you?” She was now combing her hand through her loosely braided hair, and her eyes were already half-closed. André tried to form words, but hated himself for saying it before the sentence left his mouth.

“I think I'm in love with Jade.” Tori’s eyes flew open and her hand got stuck in her hair.

“You WHAT? What the hell happened tonight?” She went to sit down on the couch, all while constantly giving André looks like she wasn’t sure if he’d been replaced by a clone.

“I dunno... We were just working' together... All night... at school... And I just saw her sing... And then she just looked so... So pretty and sweet.” Tori shook her head, and he knew that this had been a bad idea. She hated Jade and would trash-talk her all night, which meant that he would counter how great she was, and in the end, he’d have a bigger crush than before.

“Dude... you can't love Jade!” But where was he supposed to go? He basically only had five friends, the first two were out of question, Cat wouldn’t be any help either, and Robbie would just tell on him immediately.

“Like I don't know that?! Beck is one of my best friends! I would never try to move in on a friend's girl. I don't play that way.” Who knew if she would even like him back? She liked him, sure, but as a friend, and she _loved_ Beck.

“Good. So just forget about this.”

_The two of them were fighting a lot, they had broken up before, maybe…_

“I can't!”

“Why can't you?”

“I’m horrible at hiding my feelings for girls. Seriously. I don’t know how I can keep hanging out with them!”

Tori nodded. At least she was trying to understand. “Okay listen. I don't think you're in love with Jade.” André’s eyes went upwards to meet hers. “You don't?”

“No. You guys were just there, together, alone, late... And you were tired...” Jade wasn’t tired, he was sure of that. But he felt tired.

“And you were writing a song, so you felt emotional...” He wasn’t emotional, or else he would have written the dumb lyrics himself. But she had been thinking about Beck, so maybe she had been emotional.

“And you forgot that Jade is a mean, vicious person with deep psychological problems.”

“Hey!” Tori was confused by his sudden anger, but he didn’t even have the words to explain how wrong she was.

Would she, in his eyes, benefit from seeing a therapist? Sure.

But he would never hold her accountable for that, especially not after what she had been through.

“I’m just saying, you guys would never be in a relationship with each other. You just don’t fit. I mean you know how much Beck does on a daily basis to shield the world from her, right?”

“ _More like protect her from the world_ ”, he thought.

That was the other thing, Beck and Jade had been extra close over the past few weeks. There had been the text fight incident, but they had gotten over that within three days. Now wherever Jade was, Beck was too and the other way around.

_He was so dead._

He went home at four and slept until seven. André was lucky, his first period was free so he didn’t have to come in until nine. Just enough time to finish editing the song. They had tried a couple of different things and he had to choose which verses he wanted in the final version. When he got to school, Tori was already waiting at his locker.

“Morning.” He nodded and opened his locker. “So? Do you still… You know…?” “Nah, I probably just needed to...” She shushed him before he could finish the sentence since Jade and Beck were walking up to them. “Be cool.” “I am cool.” “Just don’t say anything weird.” “Thanks, I’ll try to remember that.” “Oh, just shut up.”

“Hey. What's up?” Tori tried to greet the couple as innocently as possible, and André struggled to not look at Jade’s lips.

How had he never noticed how pretty she was before? “So, can I hear the song?”

How had he never noticed that smile and how quick witted she was? “André?”

How had he never noticed that she- “Hello???”

-was talking to him right now.

“Huh? Uh. Oh yeah, I just gotta...What did you say?” Now she was looking at him like he was crazy. “I asked about the song.” André was still feeling like his brain was surrounded by fog, so he turned to Tori for any help he could get. “Hmmm?”

“Jade wants to hear the s o n g you guys recorded together.” She turned to the other two. “Sorry guys, he didn’t sleep a ton last night.” Just in time, André caught himself. “Oh, the song! Sure. I'll email it to you. Y'know, via the Internet.” He wanted to face palm really bad, especially after he saw Jade’s reaction: She was looking at him, confused as ever, before she leaned forward. “Via?” Now Beck stepped in and put an arm around Jade’s waist. André felt a sudden bolt of pain run through his chest. Beck was great, but right now he just wanted him gone.

“Don't you think you guys should listen to the song together?” Sure. So that he would get emotional again and screw everything up, sure, that would make it better. “No. Why together?” He was horrible at lying and equally bad at getting himself out of sticky situations. His voice just got higher and faster the more he tried to think his way out. “She can listen to it by herself, I didn't do anything!”

Jade frowned and looked straight into his eyes, as if to find the version of him that wrote lyrics with her eight hours ago. But the André that had sung to her about his dog’s shampoo was long gone; abducted by Jade’s raspy voice and her soft hair and her stunning eyes and he wasn’t sure if that person was ever coming back.

“Okay. Email it to me”, she said slowly, putting an emphasis on how incredibly weird he was acting. As Beck and Jade disappeared to the side hallway, he heard them whispering. “Via the Internet? That's weird, right?”

“Okay maybe I was a little too quick to assume this was a phase. Maybe you are in love with Jade.” André’s eyes grew wide at her accusation. They were in a very public hallway, not even to speak of the fact that Beck and Jade had only left sheer seconds ago, literally anyone could hear them. “Shhhh! Don't say that!” “But what if you are?” “I am!” Fuck. He didn’t mean to say that. “You are?” “No. Maybe. Stop it!” With that, he ran out the door, all the way to his car.

Then he wrote a song. “365 days”.

He addressed it to her, not Jade but Jadelyn, because somehow that felt more personal.

_Monday, well Jadelyn I fell for you_ (When he saw her, really saw her for the first time)

 _Tuesday, I wrote you this song_ (He had to get his feelings out somehow)

 _Wednesday,_ I wait outside your door (He shouldn’t)

 _Even though I know it's wrong_ (He knows he shouldn’t)

 _Seven days a week, every hour of the month_ (Maybe it would never end)

 _You're the only one_ (Who else could it be)

 _That I really want_ (Maybe it had always been her)

 _I shouldn't feel this way_ (Beck was his best friend)

 _But I gotta say_ (He wanted her to know)

 _Jadelyn gotta let you know_ (She could never know)

 _I will try everything to make you come closer to me_ (Why was he even still writing this song?)

 _And Jadelyn do you believe that it's not just a phase?_ (Tori said it was; It didn’t feel like one)

But he couldn’t stop writing, and the song basically finished itself.

_How can I get it through? You are the one I can't lose_

_I'll try 365 days, 365 ways to get to you_

_You say you got me all figured out_

_Think you can read my mind_

_Think I'm the type to play around_

_But, Jadelyn, you'll see in time_

_Every second_

_Every tick tick of the clock_

_I want you all to myself_

_I want you all to myself, Jadelyn_

_Every single second until my heart stops_

_I swear there ain't nobody else_

_Feeling kinda guilty,_

_But girl I can't stop_

_Girl I don't wanna nobody else_

_No one else no one else_

_I will try everything_

_To make you come closer to me_

_I'll try 365 days_

_365 ways to get to you_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Howdy!  
> I decided, like I do literally every time I try to fit too much into one chapter, to split this one. The second half, along with the Christmas episode, will probably be out by next week. This once again broke the record for highest word count, which is not just because of the lyrics, even thoug they played a big part in it.  
> For those of you that don't fully recognize the lyrics of 365 days, that is because I mixed the lyrics of the episode with those of the official song and changed a llittle detail myself.  
> I spent some time on figuring out a timeline for the episode since I wanted him to actually fall for her on a Monday (I know that is unnecessary but oh well)
> 
> Also when I wrote the bit about André procracinating, I quite literally started playing with my phone. Y'all, it is contagious. I had lots of fun writing the Bade chat btw!
> 
> Still love hearing from you guys (in the comments and on tumblr), so pls write down any kind of feedback, suggestion or plain comment, it makes me super happy and has scientifically been proven to make me write faster. It has. 
> 
> So, without further ado:  
> A hui hou, malama pono.  
> (Currently learning Hawaiian on Duolingo as u can see)
> 
> Title from: Spencer (Prettly Little Liars)


	17. There were so many times I wanted to kiss her, but I didn't

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jade Gets Crushed Part 2 and 3, A Christmas Tori Part 1, lots of Bade& Jandré

_I've searched the world and I know now,_

_It ain't right if you ain't lost your mind_

**October 4th, 2011**

MC Tori: meet me @my place

André: y

MC Tori: just do it

On one hand, André was way too tired to drive all the way to Tori’s place now, especially since it was already dark outside. On the other hand, …

He was a little curious what she wanted. And he really needed a distraction from the whole Jade thing. Beck and him had been paired up in Visual Arts and André wasn’t sure how he was supposed to look his best friend in the eyes after writing a song about his girlfriend.

The musician was greeted by Tori’s mom, who informed him that her daughter was still upstairs and heading down in a minute. In the meantime, he took a closer look around the room.

André was at her place so often that it had basically become his second home. Everything about the living room/ kitchen was familiar to him; from the bright, red couches that sure as hell weren’t as comfortable as they looked, to the small, wooden table that had always felt like the heart of the house to him. That small table with smooth edges was the only place he had seen the whole Vega family get along.

Sometimes he wished he had a family like theirs;

Imperfect and chaotic, yet smooth around the edges.

He was ripped out of his thoughts when he heard heavy boots slam down the stairs, almost as if the thin carpet had given up on protecting him from the noise. But the sound was drowned out by a much louder voice: “WHAT ARE YOU DOING IN MY HOUSE?”

It sounded like Tori, and yet it didn’t. He had never, ever heard Tori shout like that before. When he turned around, she didn’t look like herself either: Her hair was hidden under a terrifyingly realistic wig of Jade’s hair, she was wearing combat boots, a black top, Jade’s jacket and even a necklace he could have sworn he’d seen on Jade a few days ago.

“What in the name of gravy?” But Tori’s stare remained cold and locked onto his head. “Okay here's an idea: Say something intelligent or shut your face!” “Why the fuck are you dressed up as Jade?” For a moment she looked at him as if he’d asked her if Los Angeles was a state (Cat had once, it was a low point for all of them), but then she yanked a piece of paper out of her jacket. No. Jade’s jacket. Geez.

It read “ _I'm helping you. Just pretend I'm Jade, and you'll see why you don't wanna be in love with a girl like her”._ He scoffed. “Tori this ain’t gonna work.” She ignored him. Fine.

“So, Jade... Wanna go to a movie?” She seemed to be more than prepared for the role as she answered within seconds. “Sure, we’ll watch the new Japanese movie about the toilet ghost that chokes little children and then eats their flesh.” Dang. At least she was committed.

“Or... maybe we should just go out and get a hamburger.” “Beef makes me puke.” Spot on Jade, again. “We could go to the carnival.” “Why? You suck at all the games.”

“Okay I don’t think you’re being fair here.” But Tori was only getting started:

“Deal with it.” He tone was lower, not really as low as Jade’s but slowly getting there.

Jade leaned forward. No. _Tori_ leaned forward. “Because if you and I were ever boyfriend and girlfriend…” Boyfriend and girlfriend. Him and Jade. He could almost see it. Sitting next to her on a bench at the beach, playing her his newest song while the soft breeze was making her hair flow gently. The two of them on the rooftop of the school, talking until time meant nothing anymore. Sharing his deepest secrets, and maybe even hearing hers. Maybe it was the red of the couch they were sitting on, maybe he was hallucinating Jade’s scent or maybe, just maybe, he was seeing something he couldn’t see before.

He wanted nothing more than to jump into his daydream and keep feeling like this forever; excited for what was yet to come but completely calm at the same time. He was high on what could be. On who they could be.

“…I'll be way meaner to you.”

André wanted to be with her and nothing else. Them, surrounded by black smoke and bad decisions. To comb his hands through that dark hair and hug her and be close to her and kiss her-

Subconsciously he finally gave into his desire and leaned forward to kiss her, because she was right there and he couldn’t let this feeling slip through his hands.

He didn’t even see Tori’s face anymore, just Jade’s clothes and Jade’s hair and suddenly Jade’s face and her lips and how had he been so blind before?

“Uhhh... What are... hey, now...” He didn’t notice the way she escaped into the pillows behind them. “Oh Jade...” He woke up when a dark red pillow made out of a fabric that was way too rough to be shoved into someone’s face hit him. “André!!!”

It wasn’t Jade. It was Tori. Shit.

She got over the shock of them almost kissing quickly, and readjusted the position in which she was sitting. “Damn, you’re really messed up about this.”

“Yeah, no shit.”

“But I don’t understand! She’s _Jade_. She hates all of us and if she had to choose between saving her best friends or saving a pair of her scissors, SHE WOULD CHOSE THE SCISSORS. Not even, like, her favorite scissors. Probably the ones Sinjin sat on.” André shook his head. “That’s not true. She cares more than you think, she just has a hard time showing it because- “

“Because what, André?” He could see that she was getting worked up now, and he wondered if he should tell Tori that she still technically looked like the girl she was insulting. “Why does she deserve special treatment? Honestly, I’ve had it up here with everyone letting her get away with all the things she does to us.” “You really don’t know anything about her Tori. Trust me, she’s been through stuff.”

André was in a tough spot now and he knew it. He didn’t want to tell Tori all the things that she didn’t know about Jade because he was told those things in confidence, but he also couldn’t let Tori talk about Jade like that. Tori jumped up, since she was only getting started.

“Through what, André? What? Beck’s mom is dead. Cat’s family doesn’t give a fuck about her, what the hell is supposed to be going on in Jade’s life that gives her the right to walk all over us? Of all people I thought you might understand what I mean since your parents- “

She stopped herself, but it was already too late. His face fell, and so did hers. Any sign of anger or aggression was now washed away completely, gone with the last sentence Tori had forgotten to filter out. Now she was looking at him like a drenched cat. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to.”

“It’s okay. I’m just saying, there are things that you don’t know about her.” André felt like he was repeating himself all over again, but how petty could he have been to care more about winning an argument then protecting Jade’s privacy?

“Besides, I don’t even get why you’re suddenly so mad about who she is. You’ve been at this school for over one and a half years and the girl has poured iced coffee over your head, made your co-inmates in prison angry, thrown parties for the whole school without inviting you, thrown you down a forty feet balcony, framed you for giving her a black eye- “

“Yeah, about that: How did she actually get that black eye? She never told me.”

That was a good question. Beck had told the group that Tori was innocent in order to rebuilt their trust in her, but they had never gotten a full explanation as to what had happened. He reminded himself to ask Jade at some point in the future what that had been about.

“Don’t distract from the question. Why now? Why does it suddenly bother you?”

“Because you want to date her! I can take her as a friend and I want what’s best for her- “

André’s eyes almost rolled to the back of his head. “Hey! I do! I want Jade to be happy, or at least fine. But do you really think that you guys dating would be in either of your best interests? Jade is with Beck and she is happy, and let’s be real: She would destroy you in a relationship. Can I tolerate her as a friend? Yes. Do I want her to date my best friend? Fuck no.”

“You’re such a hypocrite! And where did you even get the costume? Do you just happen to have her stuff lying around? And _the wig_?” Tori’s cheeks were flushed bright red within minutes. “That’s none of your business!”

_Alright._

They both stood next to each other in silence, hands buried in their pockets and eyes looking for help on the living room floor. They both just had to cool their minds a little.

“I wrote a song about her you know?”

“You wrote her a song? That's so sweet.” “It’s really not.” She was Beck's girlfriend for god’s sake.

She sat back down and he followed, resuming with silence once again. Until Tori addressed him again. “I think you should sing Jade the song. “

He scoffed. “Why would I ever do that?” “So that you can get over her, duh!”

“But if I sing her the song, then she's gonna know how I feel. And then Beck will know. And then I'm a bad person!” “Jesus! I didn’t mean try to make out with her afterwards, I just meant asking her how she feels about it. Jade doesn't have to know the song is about her, she probably won’t guess it on her own.”

“Her name's in it, like 10 times!”

“So just change every Jade to girl.” André bit his lip, mentally fighting with himself about whether or not he should tell her where she went wrong. He avoided her piercing gaze and whispered it.

“It’s not addressed to Jade. It says Jadelyn.” Tori moaned, loudly, to show how annoyed she was with him. “Are you serious? Dude! How did you fall for her that hard that quickly?” André shrugged.

“Well… Then change it to baby. That’s even better. Then you sing your song tomorrow at the Friday night concert. Jade will be in the audience, that way you won’t have to be alone with her again. You can sing her your song, and she'll never know it's about her.”

**October 7 th, 2011**

“Okay. Comin' up next, we got Andre Harris and Tori Vega, singing an original song, written by Andre. Give it up everybody!” André was nervous as fuck. His palms were sweaty, his heart was racing, and the fact that he knew that Beck and Jade were in the audience, together, made the whole thing even more nerve wrecking.

André had never had a problem with performing. He loved the cheers of the crowd, seeing people dance and lip-sync to his music. From the rooftop of the Asphalt Café, everything looked a little smaller, and every problem seemed a little farer away.

Not today though. Today was a mess, and André still didn’t want to think about what could happen if he accidentally sung a verse from his original song. He had practiced not to, of course, but he was still afraid he might let one “Jadelyn” slip, and effectively kill his friendship with both Beck and Jade.

“Hey everyone, this is 365 days, I wrote, for uh...” Tori could see that he was struggling to lie, so she jumped in and saved him.

“For his dog.” André nodded in confirmation. “I love my dog.” She shot him a look that said “stop that now” and he shrugged. How was _he_ supposed to control how he felt?

His gaze went through the rows of students in the audience, until it got caught by a pair of bright, blue-ish eyes, and everything he had worried about went out the window. It was just them in the empty parking lot. Just them, when he started singing the first verse. Just them when he told her how he really felt, him up on the roof, her sitting on that truck bed down below.

He didn’t mess up once, not when she started smiling at him, or when she and Beck started clapping along. Tori wondered why Jade didn’t realize that all through the song, he only had eyes for her.

When she hugged him later, as all of his friends came to congratulate them, he did her best not to audibly inhale the way she smelled. Not to take a mental shot of this scene and keep it forever, as a reminder of what could have been.

He tried to shove those feelings down by leaving with another girl, who knows what her name was.

Jade was with Beck and he was in between girlfriends, the way it had always been.

**November 29 th, 2011**

It was winter, but it wasn’t.

Last night, it had been 62° outside, and it was _November_. In Canada, he would have been lucky if the temperature was over 22°. Out of all the things that he still wasn’t used to in the states, temperature sure was one of the highlights. Usually, he appreciated the warm weather as it allowed him to sleep in his trailer, but not this week.

A cricket had flown into the Silver Streak and was now terrorizing him. If he’d at least been quiet. Whiny little bastard. 

But the cricket didn’t give a shit about Beck’s need for sleep, and granted him about two hours of silence each night, before he started his concert again. If Beck had one pet peeve, it was having to hear the same sound over and over again. This thing in his trailer was quite literally driving him insane, and there was nothing he could do about it. There was no way he was sleeping in his parents’ room.

So, he slept in class. Sikowitz wasn’t really teaching them anything useful anyway, and his class was one of the only ones he didn’t have to write exams in, which made it the perfect nap time. But as soon as his head as his head was rested on the empty chair in front of him, his eyes fell shut and everything was easy.

Until it wasn’t anymore. “CAT!”

He flinched and roughly felt himself pulled back into his body. Jade turned to him and gave him an apologetic look. She was worried about him, he could feel it, but for the most part he was happy that she kept it to herself and supported him as much as she could.

André started telling everyone about his personal problems, Tori tried meddling again, and he went back to sleep.

Sikowitz woke him up some time after that, Tori tried to correct Jade, and they were at each other’s throats within minutes. It was a fortunate distraction, as it allowed him to shut his eyes once again.

“…You kids need a big fat dose of Christmas spirit rammed into your teenage hearts. So there such, as your teacher, I require you to participate in ... Secret Santa.” _Wait what?_ Now he’d definitely missed something important. There was no way he was spending time on some stupid secret Santa gift while their last exams for the semester where only a week away and he wasn’t getting more than a few hours of sleep every night. Fortunately, the class seemed to agree with him, as everyone had their own problem with the assignment. In between questions and arguments against secret Santa, he could hear Cat yell something about the Christmas dolphin.

“Stop that. No ad-lib complaining. I'll text you all your secret Santa assignment. And I expect you to give very good, very creative gifts.”

He knew what Jade would have to say to that even before she uttered the question. “And what if we don't?” His girlfriend was daring by design, but sometimes he wished she could just leave it alone. Especially since it usually made matters worse. Like now.

“Whoever gives the worst give, will have to join me on Christmas eve for Christmas yodeling.”

Ugh.

“What's Christmas yodeling?”

UGH.

Sikowitz started yodeling his lungs out, and Beck decided to show Tori how to use Yahoo Answers as his secret Santa present to the whole god damn world.

**December 1st, 2011**

“Just give me anyone else.” Another night, another blurred day with bags under his eyes.

“Jade, you're Tori's secret Santa and let be that!” Just that today, he had picked his new weapon in the fight against being tired: Coffee. Jade drank coffee all the time, Beck didn’t.

She scoffed. “But why do I have to- “

Beck cut her off. He didn’t want to, but his brain wasn’t giving him any choice. She was slow. Everyone today was so slow. Maybe his body just wasn’t used to the coffee. That would explain why everything was so boring and slow and why _hehadtomoverightnow_.

Beck was bouncing up and down. His veins were filled with electricity and he felt like he might explode if he ever stood still. “He said he's not gonna change it so just deal with it, why don't you just deal with it? Why don't you just deal with it?” Jade looked at him in confusion. His newfound adrenaline was causing Beck to become annoyed with her and definitely less tolerant of her problems. Sikowitz took a hold of him and felt his heartbeat with his left palm.

“His heart is vibrating.” Less of a question and more of an observation. Beck saw the way Jade’s face formed a concerned expression and it ripped something inside of him apart. He didn’t like seeing her hurt, and she currently had to take care of enough herself. Something was going on in her home, he could sense it, but she wouldn’t talk to him about. She had only reassured him that it had nothing to do with her step-dad. If only that had been enough.

“How much coffee have you drank?” “A lot, like a lot. I don't know. Like maybe seven cups, a lot, is there a problem?” Sikowitz turned to Jade for any kind of explanation. “He's drinking coffee so stay awake at school because of the stupid cricket that's keeping him up every night.”

Beck nodded frantically. He could taste his heartbeat, and asked himself if that was a bad sign. Probably. “Lotta coffee”. Did he say that out loud?

“Look, I don't wanna be Tori's secret Santa.” Sikowitz shrugged. “Too bad!”

He was asking for war.

**December 2nd, 2011**

Friday was the first day Beck was able to comprehend again. He had switched over to his parents’ house in the middle of the night. They had allowed it because they were too tired to argue with him, but this morning he was forced to swear that it was just for two nights. He had to get the cricket by then or think of another place to sleep. Otherwise, he had to give into their conditions again, and there was no way in hell he was breaking up with Jade. He also didn’t have the energy to pretend like he did for his parents.

Beck was playing around with his 'J' necklace, his last birthday present from Jade. To others it seemed a little possessive, but he didn’t mind wearing it. He liked knowing that a part of her was with him at all times.

“Here... This is the most gigantic cup of coffee they sell.” Jade let herself fall into the locker next to him and handed over the cup.

“It's not enough.” He saw a flash of disappointment flash through his girlfriend’s eyes, and for a moment he wished he would have just shut up. He hadn’t asked her for the coffee, she had tried to do something nice for him and there was no reason he had reacted like this. Beck wanted to say something, maybe apologize, but she just brushed it off and move on.

“Look, that cricket's been keeping you awake for over a month now. I’m worried about you.” “It’s fine.” “No, it’s not! Can’t you just stay at your parents’ place?” Beck groaned. “We both know if I do that then they will ask me to… You know…” “Stop seeing me. Whatever, they don’t know what we’re doing in school.” He was about to take a big sip of the even bigger coffee she had gotten him, and now almost choked on the drink. She smirked.

They were interrupted by the most extreme interruption to ever walk planet earth: Cat Valentine. “Hiiiiiiiii! Secret Santa time!” She made a big, excited gesture and Jade frowned.

“You mine or his?” Jade’s aggressive and direct way of communication was nothing new to Beck, but it still surprised him how utterly unfazed Cat was by any kind of insult or impolite remark by Jade. Almost as if she didn’t hear any of them. Maybe the redhead had gotten used to filtering Jade’s comments in her head and only really listen to the core information. To him, that was the only possible explanation for how this wide-eyed, bubbly girl was still happy to be around Jade.

“Yours! It's for you!” “Give it!” Jade ripped the present out of Cat’s hands. So much for being grateful. Tori made the fatal mistake of walking up to them while Jade was still unpacking. “Hey guys... Can I ask you a... ““Shut up! I'm opening a Christmas present!” _Okay_.

Jade lifted a pair of scissors in a glass box out of Cat’s bag and her whole expression changed. Jade was looking at them like they were diamonds, and Beck smiled. He loved seeing her like that.

“Oh my god Cat, you did not.” Tori looked confused and Beck was about to warn her, but she asked before he had the chance to. “Scissors?” “They're special scissors”, Jade shot back at her. Cat was still hyped. “They're from a real movie!” “I cannot believe you got me these.” Jade was now eying the packaging, and he had a feeling that they would be here for a while.

Jade loved scissors. Ever since he had known her, a pair of these were always somewhere in her back or jacket or hands, cutting paper that should have remained uncut and targeting innocent flowers. He had learned not to give her any important papers a long while ago.

“What movie were they used in?” "The Scissoring". Jade carefully took the scissors into her hands and tried them out. “Wait, that one about the girl who comes back from the death and uses a pair of scissors on her two best friends?” “Yep.” Jade looked up and started cutting through the air between the girls with her brand-new scissors. “Starting with the pretty girl.” Beck tried to mask his laugh, but the way Tori’s face had fallen was just too good.”

Tori shook her head, as if to forget Jade’s comment.

“You guys, I'm Andre's secret Santa, and I have like no clue what to give him. I don't want to give him the worst present and then have to go Christmas yodeling with Sikowitz.”

Jade nodded. “Two words...” He knew what they were going to be. “I bet they won't be helpful.” “Your problem.” “I was right.” He knew her too well.

At some point during lunch break, André suggested to hunt the cricket. Beck knew that he was just trying to be helpful, but that wasn’t actually making the idea any better. “My trailer is way to big to catch some two-inch cricket.” “I don’t get the problem. Just stay at your parents’ place”, Robbie said, being equally unhelpful. “If I stay under their roof, I will have to do what they want from me again. That means I can’t see Jade anymore. You know I can’t do that.”

He was already getting ready for the suggestion that he should fake a breakup for his parents, but Cat, who was playing with her shoelaces, surprised him.

“Why don’t you just stay with Jade?”, she asked, so quietly that Beck almost couldn’t hear her. The whole table went silent and all eyes were on him and Jade.

Hesitantly, Tori doubled down on her point. “Yeah, why don’t you just stay with her?”

Good question. Why didn’t he? HE looked over to Jade, who was extraordinarily occupied with her fries. When she looked up and he raised his eyebrows, she shrugged and tried to play it cool. “Sure, you could do that, or you could… Not do that.” Beck tilted his head, and she immediately went back to her fries. That was odd.

“Let’s take a walk.” Before Jade could argue with him, he pulled her up by her wrists and led her out of the Asphalt Café. When they were far enough from any possible eavesdropping students, he stopped. “I don’t think I’ve ever been at your place.” Jade scoffed. “Sure, you have. Last week when we went to Tori’s place…” “I don’t mean at the door to pick you up. I mean like actually inside the house. For example, I have never been in your room, or ate at your place or even used the freaking bathroom.”

Beck tried to catch her gaze before it went to the ground again. “I mean we’ve been dating for what-two years? Why don’t you want me to be there? Or get to know you’re family? They can’t be worse than mine.” He felt the fresh morning air blow his hair back, and Jade took a step back because the sunlight was blinding her.

“You know what? Fine. You can stay at my place tomorrow. But you don’t get to complain about it.”

* * *

**December 3 rd, 2011**

QuarterBeck: I ferl like qwe should mmet up for the assignemt.

André 🙃: K when

QuarterBeck: Your placr @5?

(Read at 3:16)

5 PM. That was like two hours away. When Beck had asked him to meet up for the Visual Arts thing, he hadn’t thought about the fact that it was due on Monday. Besides, Sunday was fine too, right? Anything that would delay his confrontation with Beck. Sure, he had slowly gotten used to being around Jade more, but it wasn’t the same. He still felt like he was getting stabbed every time Beck kissed her and guilty whenever anyone caught him staring. A part of him knew that it was only a matter of time until he had to tell Beck, or else he’d find out himself, and André truly didn’t know which was worse.

_“Who is it? 8:30 Meredith? Or 9 sharp Sherry? 9:05 Eli?” “Stop it dude” “No no let me have this one. Molly in this Mean Girls thing? Or...” he laughed “Jade West?” Beck’s face fell and so did his a few seconds later. “Tell me you’re kidding”” Why?" Beck was now looking at the glitter particles on the floor. "I think she’s pretty cool.” “Pretty cool? Beck, that girl would eat you alive.”_

He texted his friend a thumbs up emoji in hopes of not conveying any of his anxieties if he stuck to expressing himself in pictures. André’s grandmother was out of town for some relaxation weekend, which meant that at least there would be no distractions to them working. Which, on second thought, maybe wouldn’t have been too bad to have.

Anyway.

When Beck got there, he offered him a soda, as always, and made fun of him being Canadian, as always. The way they laughed, the way they always did, could have given any outsiders observing the scene the impression that everything was fine, but it wasn’t. Because nothing could ever be the same. Because know he knew what Beck meant when he talked about his girlfriend with that bright smile on his face, and why he felt like the luckiest guy in the world.

_“Dude... Can we talk?” He nodded zoned out and André pulled him away from Robbie’s bed. “What in the name of god is up with you?” “Huh?” Beck was still following her with his eyes. “Are you even listening to me? **Hey**!” “Yeah, of course, what’s up?” “I could ask you that! Why are you suddenly being all touchy with Jade?”_

“I’m gonna go to the bathroom okay? Just make yourself comfortable and start brainstorming.” With those words, André left Beck in his room and went to splash some cold water in his face. When he looked into the bathroom mirror, he didn’t recognize himself. The guy staring back at him wasn’t the same guy that had first walked through the doors of Hollywood Arts in 2009, excided to learn all about music and have the time of his life.

A part of him wished things could go back to the way they were before. He’d rather hat Jade than love her, not that he had a say in the whole mess anyway. He could see them, freshman year, talking about her. The first times Beck had mentioned her name, looked at her walking past them in the hallways, stared at her in class, André had been sure his friend was going insane.

_Because Jade was mean and she was loud and quite frankly, a little violent. Because she hypnotized Beck and they were way too comfortable with PDA. Because she was into some creepy ass shit and she scared him and because she simply looked like trouble._

But then they’d spent some time on assignments and at lunch, and Beck had told him to give her a chance for his sake and she’d grown on him. Grown on him so much that even after she had broken up with Beck, he’d sat at her table for lunch and when he’d invited her back after the whole Karaoke Dokie hell. André had gone from disliking Jade to being scared of her to tolerating her existence to enjoying her company to missing her at lunch to-

To going after her when she didn’t get the part she wanted and to playing her boyfriend in a play and comforting her on the rooftop that night. She was his friend, something he’d never thought he would ever think and yet it was exactly what they were. Friends. The night they had talked in the main hallway after the prome disaster, he had first realized that Jade had gradually become one of his best friends. She understood him and listened in a way that the others weren’t capable of, and she made him stand up for himself because she didn’t look at him like everyone’s best friend and free songwriter whenever they were in need of one.

_Because Jade was sweet and she was witty and quite frankly the most honest person he’d ever met. Because she hypnotized him and he was way too in love with her. Because she was funny in a dry, sarcastic way and she enchanted him and because she simply looked like the prettiest girl that he’d ever met._

He decided to go back before his best friend started worrying about him. Weirdly, Beck didn’t even seem to notice him when he walked back into the room, even though he had been gone for like twenty minutes. Beck was holding something that André couldn’t see because his back was facing him.

_Beck now completely focused on him. “I’m sorry. It didn’t mean anything. I wasn’t cheating on you”, he said sarcastically. “I’m being serious, man. She isn’t the kind of girl you want to date. She’s scary. “He shook his head in disbelief. “You know, if you wouldn’t have been so fast to make up your mind about her you could see that she is actually pretty cool.”_

_“Do you actually like her? I mean really like… like her?”_

_“Yes. And I think she might like me too.” “Okay. Do whatever you want, but when you realize, that that girl is crazy, I’m going to say I told you so.”_

“I’m back, sorry it took so long. The door is fucking old and the key doesn’t really work. What did you come up with?”

Nothing. Beck didn’t seem to hear him either.

“Uhm… Hello?” He was now waving, hoping that Beck could see his reflection in the windows and it worked, because Beck slowly turned to him. He was holding notebook paper in his hands.

Beck read the note, or whatever was on the paper in an almost robotic voice.

“I want you all to myself, Jadelyn. Every single second until my heart stops. I swear there ain't nobody else.”

For a moment, André was pretty sure that this was the second that his heart would stop. Because his breath caught, he froze, and for a second he considered jumping out the window. But then he saw the look on Beck’s face and decided to keep the possibility in mind for later.

He furrowed his brows and his eyes got comically small. “Do you… Like… Jade???”

André automatically put his hands up and stumbled a few steps backwards, but Beck didn’t even try to go after him. He just stood there, as if he had roots underground, and he stared at him like he was a stranger. André buried his hands in his pockets and started stepping from one foot onto the other.

“So… Don’t get mad... But here’s the thing…”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Y’ALL!  
> I know this chapter was kinda mean because the ending wasn’t really a solution for anything, but hang in there! Unfortunately, my weekend kinda sucked and I had lots of responsibilities, so the fact that I wrote this stuff is kind of a miracle. Also I kinda realized in writing this chapter that as of right now, writing the André storyline is way easier for me than writing the Beck anxiety and staying at Jade’s place plot. Which does not mean that I won’t finish those two as well, but I’ll have to find some level of inspiration as to where I want those storylines too go. As always, I write way too long so I had to split this one up, again, and we are looking at 21 chapters now. Thanks for sticking with me, we have officially reached the 60.000 word count. u can be proud of yourself for making it this far, and I hope you guys will stick around for future chapters. 
> 
> As always, please kudo and especially comment, I love anything ranging from feedback to questions to suggestions to idk inspiration and analyzing the characters (I love talking about canon and fix it versions so please, comment away!) I just feel rlly happy when people write stuff, to the extend that I kinda started commenting on old fics that I read a while ago because I never felt like I should comment if I didn’t have something "really important" to say/ask. 
> 
> I don’t care if what u write makes sense so pls comment lmao.   
> That is it for tonight, have a great week.   
> (Also I started Euphoria and since I usually write in the style of whatever show I watch at the time, prepare yourself for oncoming angst)  
> Title from: Jules (Euphoria)


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